


Tales from the Moon Kingdom

by PaksenarrionReader



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: F/F, No One Is Straight In Crystal Tokyo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-02-11 17:22:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 44,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12940077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaksenarrionReader/pseuds/PaksenarrionReader
Summary: A collection of snapshots all across the timeline, from the Silver Millennium to the Crystal Tokyo. Mostly following 90s anime canon, with some nods to the manga and a lot of my personal headcanons. Warning: there will be lesbians. (Obviously.) Other, more serious warnings will appear when appliable.





	1. Echoes and Reflections

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hello and welcome to this little project of mine! I’ve finally decided to scribble down some of my headcanons. I am not going to write a re-telling of the entire story, be it manga, 90s anime, or Myus canon (Don’t talk to me about Crystal. Just, don’t.) as that would take forever and I have other things I’m writing, too. Both fanfic and original fiction.
> 
> I’ve come across Sailor Moon for the first time when I was a teenager. A little late to start, I know. At the time, I was still getting used to the concept of being a lesbian—not exactly struggling, since I’ve never thought that being gay is a bad thing, but adjusting and trying to figure out how to remain true to this new facet of being myself while still flying under the radar of my parents, peers, and teachers. Also, all not-straight characters from every work of fiction I’ve known back then were evil, insane, dead, or any combination of these. Let me tell you that it wasn’t encouraging. But one day, I saw someone on the Internet say that Sailor Moon has one of the most iconic yuri (lesbian) couples ever, and so, reasoning that classics are things that have to be known, I’ve started my first Sailor Moon marathon ever, the original Japanese dub with English subtitles. Kicking off with the third season, then skipping directly to the fifth.
> 
> I owe this random person on the Internet so much.
> 
> It took me a while to get used to the show’s antics, for sure. (Chibs in particular.) In spite of the fillers, I instantly loved the dynamic between the four Inner Senshi and Usagi. I loved how Mamoru was a Team Dad to them all. I could barely believe all the casual bi moments absolutely everywhere (most notably Usagi) and thought it was too good to be real. I loved Pluto and Saturn from the moment they appeared. (And through that, I learned to accept Chibs’ existence.) I loved every moment of Eudial’s screentime, and was nothing short of horrified at her demise. (And kept booing at Mimete until she met hers.) But all that was in the background, outshined by the magnificence that was Haruka/Uranus and Michiru/Neptune.
> 
> They were a couple. Maybe in somewhat early stages of their relationship in S, blatantly sleeping with each other by Stars. But they were a couple, they were defined by so much more than that, and they were so mindblowingly kickass. It was all portrayed as normal. I finally had two characters in a stable relationship who were heroes, gay, and badass. It was finally possible for lesbians to be a force of justice, protectors of the world, psychic Team Moms constantly cruising through town, accomplished athletes/artists, fighters, lovers, family. It was finally possible for lesbians to be accepted and happy.
> 
> Seven years later, and if you asked me which of the two I like more, I still can’t pick. I’d have to say both, together. And seeing as I was born in the same year Sailor Moon S first aired (specifically, sometime between episodes 108 and 109), I like to think about the HaruMichi ship as my patron saint.
> 
> Ahem. Please excuse the lengthy rant... it was way smaller in my head. Anyway. This isn’t the first snapshot I started, but due to time constraints, it’s the one I’ve focused on and managed to finish first. Written for Tumblr HaruMichi Circle’s same prompt fic party, September 2015. (This is also my first time writing for a prompt. Well, if you don’t count school stuff.) This will mostly follow the 90s anime canon, but with some nods to the manga and lots of my personal headcanons thrown in.
> 
> The prompt is as follows: **The memory of you emerges from the night around me.**

It was not the sound of curtains fluttering in the breeze that woke Michiru up, nor the moonlight shining directly in her face, but the feeling of constricted movement. Apparently she had tried to roll onto her stomach in her sleep, and couldn’t—due to a girl firmly glued to her back.

After a few careful attempts to turn within the tight circle of Haruka’s arms, Michiru sighed, resigning herself to a sore shoulder in the morning. A few years ago, she wouldn’t have believed that Japan’s top junior racer was such a clingy sleeper. Then again, she wouldn’t have believed she’d have the chance to learn that...

Behind her, Haruka stirred and drew even closer. Alarmed, Michiru touched one of her partner’s hands—firmly closed into a fist, muscles tense enough to slightly tremble. Haruka’s breathing remained steady, but took on a measured quality, as if she was in the middle of a long-distance run. Finally, a hitch to her breath, a small disgruntled noise as awareness settled in. Michiru turned to her other side, both to relieve her shoulder and to face her partner; Haruka shifted her arms to allow it.

“Sorry, did I wake you?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Michiru touched her partner’s cheek. Going to sleep tired, waking up tired, fighting monsters by day and visions by night—neither of them could keep it up forever. Something needed to change. Fast. “You were having a nightmare, weren’t you?”

“Silence again,” Haruka confirmed, leaning into the caress. “It’s getting worse, and we aren’t any closer to the Talismans. We have to find them soon, Michiru.”

“We will,” Michiru promised, brushing a hand through Haruka’s hair. “Starting again in the morning. Please, get some rest.”

“I doubt I’ll be sleeping again this night.”

“Then stay with me and try to relax.”

Haruka nodded and scooted closer, burying her face in Michiru’s chest. “Thanks,” she whispered.

Five minutes later, she was firmly asleep. Michiru shook her head with a small smile. The Earth was facing destruction, the fate of the world hinged on the two of them finding the Talismans; this was no time to fall in love. But as she held Haruka close, watching her breathe, listening to her mutter something about a 70s redesign of Jaguars in her sleep, Michiru was keenly aware that such warnings were a lifetime too late.

She pressed a kiss to the top of Haruka’s head. For the life they could have together after this crisis was over, she would search, fight, and sacrifice until the only people still standing would be the two of them. She would kill the three Talisman-bearers herself if it meant sparing Haruka from soiling her hands.

They were going to find the Talismans. But the search would resume the next morning. She needed to sleep, too.

_The misshapen creatures from outside the solar system melt under the force of tidal waves; for every creature that falls, however, another steps forth. She draws upon her power more heavily and sends out another tsunami._

_If they want a contest of patience with the ocean, so be it._

_She pushes them away, draws the tide back, and attacks again. They cannot retaliate or advance. The stalemate slowly, but steadily becomes progress._

_Then, the monsters’ flank is blasted apart with an earth-shattering gale; she looks up to see another Senshi high in the heavens, the winds moulding to her will. Their eyes meet even as the invaders scramble to form up. She calls the tide again, pools the ocean around the enemies—not a drowning force, but a wall to herd them together. Arms spread, Uranus raises a tornado and drives it through the waves. A titanic waterspout tears through the monsters, flinging out corpses that turn to dust before they even finish falling._

_Finally, whatever crafted these soulless legions rears its head, issuing a challenge of thundering hatred. Uranus roars back, and the winds echo her voice._

_She raises an eyebrow at the exchange, but makes use of it immediately; as the enemy shoots crackling black energy after the Senshi effortlessly dodging and racing across the sky, the waves quietly surround the invader, swell, begin swirling. Before the monstrosity can realize, it’s engulfed in a ravenous maelstrom. High above, Uranus flashes a predatory grin, and dives for the killing blow. With a final howl, the invader is reduced to swiftly dissipating wisps of black smoke._

_The waterspout dismantles. The maelstrom quiets down. For once, the faces of two Senshi are level. With a smile, Uranus bows deeply before the winds spirit her away, back to the area she was tasked with guarding._

~*~

“World Shaking!”

The Daimon’s shriek was half pain, half rage as it attempted to retaliate. Uranus dodged two hits, met the third with a hard block, and unleashed a flurry of punches and finger jabs before the monster could collect itself. Nearby, Neptune was facing off against the Daimon’s handler. So far, no one had the chance to examine the heart crystal ripped from a middle-schooler laying limp on the ground, a girl with wavy auburn hair tied with a teal bow.

Uranus gritted her teeth as the Daimon landed a hit on her; she whipped around to smash the heel of her shoe against the side of its head. The monster crashed into a bench at the other side of the path, and the Senshi raised a hand to finish it off.

“Hold it right there!”

Uranus froze for a second, and cursed herself for it the next.

“Public parks are for couples to come to for dates, not for assaulting a girl on her way home so late at night! Wrecking this place, the treasure of this city, is unforgivable! For love and justice, a pretty soldier in a sailor suit—Sailor Moon! In the name of the Moon, I’ll punish you!”

“You again!” the Daimon’s handler scoffed. “I’ll send you all to Hell in a batch—”

“Deep Submerge!”

The woman flashstepped clear of the attack at the last second; the Daimon was less fortunate, and tumbled to the ground again, coughing and spitting salt water.

“Go!” Uranus barked at her partner, leaping between the enemy and the victim.

Neptune ran for the heart crystal without a moment’s hesitation. A breath later, so did Moon.

“Wait!”

Uranus caught the girl around the waist with one arm, folding her like wet laundry. “Stay out of this!”

“Let me go!”

Uranus tossed Moon on the ground, cringing internally at the girl’s sharp cry. Hurting the Princess was unacceptable. Her oath had always been to protect. But she had already resolved she would sacrifice anything to find the Talismans—the Princess included, if necessary.

She risked a glance behind her. “How is it?”

Neptune shook her head—and with the subtlety of a gale smashing a butterfly against a wall, reality shattered.

_The same face, at the exact same angle; Neptune shakes her head, and speaks words that hit like the weight of the ocean._

“It’s not a Talisman.”

Uranus blinked, tossed back into the present, even as the monster’s handler snarled in frustration.

“Daimon! I’m leaving the rest to you!” A flash, and she was gone.

“Kaolinite-sama!” the monster yelled after her. Three Senshi immediately looked towards it. When it met Uranus’ eyes, it seemed to shrink a little.

“World Shaking!”

For the third time in a row, the Daimon was brutally thrown backwards.

“Go ahead,” Uranus told Moon.

The girl brandished her sceptre immediately. “Moon Spiral Heart Attack!”

The monster, not even trying to get up again, only lifted its head. “I quit,” it said with resignation a split second before the attack blasted into it, leaving only a vandalized park bench and a crumbling Daimon egg.

Moon hurried over to the evening’s victim and Neptune. “Please, give that back!”

“We don’t need it,” Neptune replied, and extended a hand with the heart crystal hovering just above her palm. “Here. Return it.”

As Moon took the heart crystal and knelt by the unconscious schoolgirl, Neptune met Uranus’ eyes and gave a small nod. Their Princess’ short attention span was a blessing whenever they wanted a quick getaway. From a safe spot, they watched unnoticed as the crystal faded into shimmering mist and returned to the schoolgirl’s chest. Moon smiled as the victim came to.

“The monster is gone. Are you all right?”

“Sailor Moon?” Osaka Naru muttered before giving a small smile. “How many times have you saved me now?”

Moon gave a short burst of slightly nervous laughter. “Who’s keeping track?”

“She has it well in hand,” Neptune commented quietly.

“I’m glad there’s one thing she’s good at,” Uranus shot back sourly. “Let’s go.”

After finding a secluded spot and confirming there was no one in sight, they shed their transformations and headed back to Haruka’s motorcycle.

“They keep picking worthless targets. Yet another wasted trip,” Haruka ran one hand through her hair in a frustrated gesture, tousling it up even further. “I’m thankful we can sense the enemy, but I wish we could sense the Talismans, too.”

“You seemed to lose focus for a moment during the fight,” Michiru said softly, a note of worry in her voice.

“I just had a flashback,” Haruka admitted reluctantly, silently cursing her partner’s perceptiveness.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” Haruka gritted her teeth against the resurfacing memory, forcing it down for now, and handed a spare helmet to Michiru. “It wasn’t exactly specific, anyway.”

Michiru’s fingers lightly brushed against her own, as if by accident. “If you say so.”

“Yeah.” Haruka straddled her bike and waited for Michiru to sit comfortably behind her. “I’ll drive you home and go for a little spin, see if that Kaolinite woman attacks anyone else tonight. Is that okay with you?”

“As long as you don’t stay out too long,” Michiru replied, wrapping her arms around Haruka’s waist a little more tightly than necessary.

Haruka briefly closed her eyes. She couldn’t lie to a grade school kid, much less to a psychic who knew her far too well. Looking for yet another fight was the last thing on her mind; she needed to feel the wind whip past her, hoping it would blow away her doubts and insecurities.

She started up her bike, not allowing the engine’s voice to build up beyond a happy growl—a concession for Michiru’s sake, who started to feel uneasy at 70 kph and would start asking to slow down at 100 kph. It wasn’t as bad in a car... but on a motorbike, which lacked a sheet of metal between the passenger and a possible grave injury, Haruka only accelerated past 80 kph if she heard a steely, fearless ring in Michiru’s voice.

Traffic was thankfully scarce, due to the late hour, and they were soon by their apartment complex. Michiru gracefully slid off the bike, paused to place a hand on Haruka’s shoulder pad.

“Take care.”

“Thanks,” Haruka covered Michiru’s hand with one of her own. “I’ll be back for the night.”

Michiru gave a small smile. “Do you mean to imply you don’t have another’s bed to sleep in anymore?”

Haruka chuckled. “What, are you jealous?”

Michiru’s smirk grew wider even as she gave a disinterested hum. “Perhaps.”

With a fierce glint to her eyes, she lightly squeezed Haruka’s shoulder and promptly turned on her heel, almost absent-mindedly flipping her hair as she walked towards the apartment complex’ entrance. She was through the door already when Haruka realized what that glint was.

Possessiveness.

Haruka stared after Michiru, marginally aware of the fact that she was suddenly too hot in her motorcycle suit. Then, she shook her head to refocus, and ran one hand along her bike’s handlebar.

The engine’s sleepy murmur rose into an excited roar; Haruka stood on the back wheel for solid four seconds before heading for the nearest expressway. Purely for the challenge and the elation it brought, she wove through traffic, and soon felt herself smile behind her helmet’s visor.

Life didn’t get much better than this.

With the road ahead nearly empty and the engine thrumming beneath her, Haruka finally felt ready to recall the flashback from before.

_Bursts of seething, helpless anger rage through her as she turns away, unwilling to watch any more of the destruction so far away. “We cannot help it,” she forces through gritted teeth. “Our duty is to watch over the realm from afar, never to come near those four.”_

_Neptune shakes her head; locks of wavy hair swirl over her shoulders as if she was submerged in water. The soft glow of the jewel on her tiara illuminates eyes that hold solemn diligence and wisdom, born of constant trials and solitude. When she speaks, her voice rings with truth as unyielding as the darkness in the depths of the ocean. “Duty is a shallow thing when there is no one left for us to serve.”_

Haruka raced past a truck, her bike’s exhaust pipe nearly striking sparks off it. The truck’s klaxon blared at her, and she took a moment to turn over her shoulder and perform a rude gesture with one hand.

Centuries of experience as a Senshi guarding the outer reaches of the solar system, and everything she could recall was either infuriatingly useless, or infuriatingly distracting. She didn’t need to think about her partner any more than she already did—whether it was the sharp-witted, bearing her burdens with grace, often slightly smug Kaioh Michiru, or the sombre, ruthless, fully awakened Sailor Neptune of the past, toil and hardships etched on her beautiful face.

Haruka accelerated again, as if trying to outrun her own anger. Her past self seemed to be warning her about committing deeds that would cause the Princess to renounce her. Talismans were sealed within the heart crystals of living individuals—but despite all of the Death Busters’ victims so far having hearts pure enough to crystallize, not a single one held a Talisman. Presumably, the three sacred treasures were hidden inside the purest of hearts. And that meant she was going to sacrifice the ones most worthy of her protection.

Her past self could also learn to time the damn flashbacks better. Next time she zoned out in the middle of a fight, it could have lethal consequences.

The winds whistled to one another, racing alongside her. None carried the tell-tale rustle that always led her to yet another battle... apparently, the enemy thought that one failure had been enough for tonight. Haruka rode on for quite a while yet, burning off her anger and leaving its remains in her dust, before a zephyr hesitantly brought her the scent of the sea.

With a sigh, Haruka began to head back. It was very late; Michiru was probably getting worried. Slowing down to a speed accepted by the police, she re-entered the urban area, and soon enough found her way home. When she entered their apartment, Michiru looked up from a book with a small smile.

“I’m back,” Haruka hung her helmet on the coat rack.

“Welcome home,” Michiru rose to give her a hug. “Though you took your time; it’s almost midnight by now.”

“Sorry. You should’ve gone to bed ahead of me.”

“It’s harder to sleep without you.”

Haruka let out a soft chuckle. “Give me a moment to shower, and we’ll sleep.”

Michiru pulled away with a sufficiently smug expression. “Don’t keep me waiting much longer.”

Indeed, she was kept waiting only for the length of time it took Haruka to wash away the fight and the ride, then discard her motorcycle suit in favour of fluffy pyjamas. Finally able to relax, Haruka stretched contentedly.

“Stop stirring and sleep already,” Michiru murmured into Haruka’s collarbone.

“Okay, okay.” Haruka briefly stroked Michiru’s hair as an apology.

For all the hardships and doubts, for all the struggles and nightmares, taking up that transformation pen was so far the best decision Haruka had ever made. It didn’t matter if their battle was endless—as long as she was by Michiru’s side, she could endure anything.

And it did fill Haruka with an odd sense of pride that of all people, she was the one that Kaioh Michiru wanted to consider her own.

~*~

When Haruka entered the kitchen, with a scowl on her face and one hand rubbing over her heart, it was to find her newest flatmate making breakfast already.

“Does it still hurt?” Setsuna asked in a way of greeting.

“It’s just an annoyance. Michiru had it much worse,” Haruka replied, forcing herself not to think about what had transpired in the Marine Cathedral the previous evening.

“How is she?”

Haruka gave a small shrug. “I tried not to wake her.”

A minute later Michiru came in, her movements measured and careful, her face much paler than normal. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Setsuna answered.

Haruka just frowned, inwardly cursing herself. “What are you doing up at this hour?”

“We always get up at this hour, to go to school,” Michiru reminded, somewhat dryly.

“You can’t be serious,” Haruka said incredulously. “I don’t need psychic powers to see that you’re in a lot of pain, exhausted, and trying to shake off another night’s worth of visions.”

Michiru gritted her teeth for the briefest of moments. “There will be rumours if we skip school for two days in a row.”

“I know. I’ll go. But I really think you should stay home,” Haruka insisted.

Sighing, Michiru covered her eyes with one hand; after a moment, she wordlessly nodded consent. Haruka placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Silence again?”

“No... the Silver Millennium. Its fall, I think,” Michiru replied, not looking up. “I need to paint.”

Haruka lightly squeezed her shoulder, chewing on some toast. “Remember to take a breather every once in a while, okay?”

“I’ll try to.”

Haruka sighed, downed her tea, and reached for her uniform’s jacket. “Alright, I’m off. A quick patrol after school, then I’ll head home. If I find trouble, I’ll call you two.”

“Understood,” Michiru met her eyes.

“Take care, please,” Setsuna called after Haruka, then turned to Michiru. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

Michiru shook her head. “I’ll probably spend the entire day painting. It’s often quite hard to concentrate...”

“Then I won’t disturb you,” Setsuna replied. “But please keep your communicator nearby, in case Uranus encounters the enemy.”

“I will. Thank you.”

That earned her a nod before the guardian of time turned away to wash Haruka’s cup. “I see why you are so shaken. Your visions are much like reliving the past, correct? The kingdom’s last moments are one of the most dreadful events I can think of.”

Michiru froze. “You remember?”

“I’ve never forgotten,” Setsuna said calmly, wiping the clean cup dry.

Michiru felt herself pale. She was sharing the kitchen with a fully awakened Senshi—one with power over the realm of the dead, if her last name was any indication—who lived through the fall of the Silver Millennium. The displays of power she could recall in awe-inspiring dreams, but couldn’t perform, were natural to Pluto. The horrors haunting her as blurry, fragmented recollections were sharp and detailed in Pluto’s memory. What she had thought of as hardship could not compare to countless ages of absolute solitude.

Setsuna turned over her shoulder with a faint smile, as if sensing her teenaged compatriot’s sudden realization. “Please do not diminish your own accomplishments. You have worked hard for your powers and skills; you have toiled for your knowledge. Mine were given to me along with my duties.” Then, her expression hardened again. “But please do not count on me too much, either. I am not here to complete yours and Uranus’ mission for you, merely to ensure you succeed. I am here to protect the future, but for that, my influence on the present has to be limited to match the current extent of your powers. I will aid you and work beside you, but please do not expect me to perform miracles.”

Michiru nodded, rising. “I understand. Thank you.”

She was still mulling over what Setsuna had said, while setting up an easel and readying paintbrushes. There was something unusual about these words of encouragement; from what little Michiru could remember of her past self’s few and far between encounters with Pluto, it was unusual for the guardian of time to say so much. Pluto had always been quiet, but appeared to always listen; her unshakeable composure and soft-spoken manner only highlighted her tendencies to lend aid when needed, but preferably let others fight their own battles and reap their own rewards.

In almost everything Setsuna said or did, she could not be more different from Haruka.

Michiru smiled a little, tying her hair back to keep it out of her face. The impetuous, fierce girl born with the blessing of the heavens valiantly pretended to be unfazed even by the worst aspects of this world, but couldn’t lie to a grade school kid, much less to a psychic who knew her—quite possibly—better than she knew herself. For all her readiness to sacrifice others, for all her apparent ruthlessness, Haruka hated the very concept of having to murder someone for the sake of the world. Were she forced to, she would—but in doing so, she would have sacrificed her own soul as well.

That was a heart worthy of holding a Talisman, indeed.

Michiru glanced to the Deep Aqua Mirror, resting on a nearby cabinet. She had always loved mirrors—much to her parents’ dismay, as they saw that as a sign of vanity. Now, she could finally free herself of these accusations, deny a perceived flaw of character with a clean conscience. She was drawn to mirrors in the same way she was always drawn to the sea.

Picking up her Talisman, she ran one hand along the frame. Suddenly, a particularly strong déjà vu washed over her; closing her eyes, she relaxed, and allowed the memories to flow.

_In the temporary absence of enemies, she allows herself a moment of melancholy. The surface of her Talisman flashes, and shows her the Princess; the heir to the throne of the Silver Millennium is thoroughly occupied with making flower wreaths, surrounded by the four Senshi of the guardian planets and two cats with crescent moon sigils on their foreheads. Mercury absent-mindedly rubs the black cat’s belly; Venus tickles the white one’s nose with a blade of grass; Mars taps her tiara with one finger while talking, no doubt pointing out the lack of sense of wearing both that and a flower wreath at the same time, but her eyes make it clear that she finds Serenity’s antics more endearing than exasperating; Jupiter has to lean down quite a bit to allow the Princess to put a newly finished wreath on her head, prompting all to laugh._

_She smiles at the idyllic image. For the sake of these girls—for the sake of their happiness—she would gladly perform her duties to the best of her ability. And as far as she could tell, the other two Senshi guarding the outer reaches of the solar system feel exactly the same._

_After a moment’s hesitation, she focuses on the mirror again. The palace gardens fade; in their place, the image of another Senshi appears. Short hair and the collar of her fuku dishevelled by the howling winds, a spark of exhilaration in her eyes, Uranus evades a swipe of a winged monster’s claws and shreds it with a single slash of her sword. Another is knocked out of the sky with a pommel hit to the throat. The enemies consolidate into a solid cloud of fluttering wings, flashing talons, and slightly glowing eyes. Uranus lets out a small chuckle, then spreads her arms, draws a deep breath, and sings a single note. The monsters’ formation is torn apart as the heavens answer her call._

_She watches the Senshi of the skies slaughter the invaders, impressed despite herself. It’s not the fight itself that Uranus loves so much—it’s the challenge of power and skill, the test of conviction and reflexes. Had the circumstances of their births been different, Uranus would probably find as much fulfilment in sports as she now does in battle._

Resurfacing, Michiru found herself still smiling, but eventually put the mirror away. As grateful as she was for anything that brought her happiness or peace, both past and present, she would hate for these memories to become mixed up with the horror that had her waking up drenched in cold sweat this morning.

She didn’t hear Haruka come home, or quietly talk with Setsuna. She didn’t notice when the sun began setting. All she heard was the clash of weapons and the roar of shattered buildings; all she saw was the unending torrent of blurry enemies.

To break free of the horrors burnt on the inside of her eyelids, she had to paint.

Meanwhile on the penthouse’s roof, Haruka was sitting on her heels, facing the sunset. Short hair tousled by the rough caresses of the wind, she allowed her thoughts to be blown away by the breeze. Breathe in, stretching the spine in a straight line... breathe out, letting the eyes drift closed.

She spent a while in the space between breaths, the temple of serenity she could always retreat to for a moment of peace and quiet. Then, her spirits somewhat lifted, she focused on the sword in a bejewelled scabbard, resting on her thighs.

The Space Sword. One of the three Talismans. A holy treasure the winds whispered of with reverence. Its hilt so natural in her hand, its resting place so familiar within her heart, its power so easily channelled alongside her own.

How could she have forgotten it?

When she reached for it, she didn’t have to think. The brilliance of her pure heart crystal—joy that Michiru was alive, relief that they wouldn’t have to sacrifice anyone, anger that they went through the whole agonizing search only to find the Talismans sealed within their own hearts, hope that their mission would finally be completed, thrill at meeting Pluto for the first time since long before the cataclysmic end of the Silver Millennium—poured into the sword, amplifying its own power, and resonated with the other two treasures. The pure, unmarred focus of three hearts unified in a single purpose brought forth the Holy Grail.

Sailor Moon only had to touch the chalice for its light to overcharge her heart and the Silver Crystal, give her a secondary transformation, and cleanse the entire cathedral from the Death Busters’ magic. If the legendary Messiah actually focused the Grail’s power...

Breathe in. Breathe out. Haruka folded her hands over her Talisman and forced herself to concentrate again.

Now that she knew of the sword, she felt like her perception had sharpened. She could hear the winds more clearly, and across greater distance. If she practiced enough, maybe she’d be able to find the enemy’s headquarters like this. And failing that, she could definitely learn to locate the enemy from afar and beat them to their target. Maybe even cut them off before they could attack.

_Behind,_ the winds whispered.

Haruka opened her eyes, letting her concentration break, and looked over her shoulder. Setsuna was standing behind her, waiting patiently.

“What’s wrong?”

“Neptune asked me to call you downstairs. It seems she is almost done painting,” the guardian of time answered calmly.

Haruka frowned a little, but rose immediately. Normally, every time Michiru finished a painting, she would take a break, then examine it again; nothing was to be seen by others until she herself was satisfied with it. Calling immediately after she was mostly done—Michiru must have really been distraught by the night’s vision. She did seem shaken in the morning...

Five minutes later, Haruka could see why.

The canvas was very dark, but not uniformly—tiny dots of light strewn across the painting gave it depth, and highlighted the silhouettes of three people. Along the bottom, a Senshi was crumpled down, the handle of the Deep Aqua Mirror in her limp hand. Near the upper left corner, another was falling from a great height, the Space Sword raised in the last act of defiance. On the right, the third stood engulfed in a cloud of dark mists, lifting the key-shaped staff crested with the Garnet Orb. All three Talismans were alight; torrents of white specks spiralled from them towards the centre of the canvas, framing a pair of eerily expressionless eyes.

“Setsuna-san?” Haruka asked quietly, unable to look away or shake off a sudden icy feeling of dread. “Is there a Sailor Saturn?”

The guardian of time gave a small sigh. “Guarded by the planet of silence, the Soldier of Ruin and Birth. When she awakens to her powers, the world as we know it is doomed to come to an end, creating space for a new world to arise. But by unleashing that power, Saturn also destroys herself. She was last called upon when the Silver Millennium fell; as she brought down the Silence Glaive, Queen Serenity tapped into the full power of the Silver Crystal, ensuring that the enemy would be sealed away, and all would be reborn in the future.”

“Do you mean to say that the enemy who brought the Silver Millennium to its knees was defeated by Saturn... in a single strike?” Michiru asked slowly.

“Yes,” Setsuna replied impassively. “Three seals were in place to prevent her awakening, one for each Talisman. These seals were broken when the Silver Millennium fell, and as the two of you were dead, they were never replaced. I would ask you to use your Talismans sparingly, seeing as their resonance after the seals are shattered is one of two things that may awaken Saturn.”

“And the other one?” Haruka spoke up again.

“A direct threat to her, or to someone she holds dear.”

“This city has the average of two monster attacks or supernatural plots in a week, and the enemies seem to pick their targets randomly; it’s only a matter of time before someone senses the dormant energy of a Senshi from her,” Haruka crossed her arms. “Is there a way of replacing the seals?”

Setsuna shook her head. “It can only be done with her unwavering consent, and that would require her to be at least partially awakened.”

“That’s not an option,” Haruka said firmly.

“Agreed.” Setsuna looked at the painting again. “Saturn’s identity in this day and age is not known to me, but her skills and the sensation of her powers are very distinct. If we find a person with supernatural abilities, I think we can safely assume that it’s her.”

“And if Saturn starts to awaken...” Haruka trailed off, her expression unreadable.

“We’ll kill her before she can come to her powers,” Michiru finished calmly. “For the sake of this world.”

Haruka gave a sharp nod. “For the sake of this world.”


	2. Please, Just Go To A Hospital Instead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Fuckcanon fix-it covering the events after Sailor Moon S finale. And because lately, I’ve been a bottomless pit of “Venus is hard as fuck” feels. Also, calling the crater where the Mugen (Infinity) Academy used to stand the Tenoh Sandbank is idiotic in a way reminiscent of the manga, with its skyscrapers and lanes ridiculously busting the civilian identities of the three Outer Senshi, so I’m calling it the Infinity Sandbank from now on.
> 
> **spoiler alert:** a few callbacks to Codename wa Sailor V

So far up, it was painful to breathe; the black whirlwind tossed them about, along with other pieces of rubble. The high-rise building that used to house Mugen Academy had been torn apart down to the bare foundation. Despite the cataclysmic storm of tainted energy raging all around, it was eerily quiet.

Until the first strike of a blade against its core.

The whirlwind itself seemed to tremble with a horrifying wail. Then, there came another blow. And the next one. Shortly, it became a rapid staccato, with terrible calls of pure anguish woven through. Bright purple flashes, each followed by a three-second delay and the echo of a blade’s slash, were shredding the red sphere at the centre of the crater that used to be the Infinity Delta from the inside.

They barely had the time to wonder who or what was doing that before all their chests tightened with the agony of the one they were living for.

Usagi was down there. Usagi was all alone, and she was still fighting.

They couldn’t break free of the storm. They couldn’t run to her side. All they could do was give her everything they had left. A year before, death wasn’t enough to keep them from unifying their hearts with hers. They could do it again.

Mars. Mercury. Jupiter. Venus.

Two new glimmers. The sky and the ocean. Uranus and Neptune. Their hearts were breaking for Usagi, too.

Next to the flickering red sphere torn with blades of purple, a spark of white and gold appeared. And then it was gone.

And then _she_ was gone.

These few minutes gave them a taste of Hell. Then, the storm of silence and black dismantled, sending them plummeting to the ground. Except that the crash never came. One minute, they were falling—the next, they were strewn on the ground, among the rubble, and there were butterflies made of light all across the sky.

The second she realized she wasn’t in the air anymore, Jupiter forced herself up. First to her knees. Then to her feet. No time to waste on catching her breath. Usagi was out there. Usagi was out there, alone, and that was enough to send her into a panicked urge to act.

She wouldn’t find Usagi on her own.

“Guys?” she called out, and winced at the sound. “Anyone?”

“Here,” a shaky but still familiar voice answered from the right. Jupiter pushed a piece of debris off of Mercury.

“You okay?”                                                        

“Never mind that,” Mercury coughed weakly, and raised a hand to her face. She summoned up her visor on the second try. Three seconds later, it flickered out of existence again. “She’s ahead... I can’t get... an exact reading.”

Seeing her friend’s face go paler on every intake of breath, Jupiter took it upon herself to shout again. “Mars! Venus!”

“Miraculously, I’m alive,” a mane of blond hair tied with a red bow flashed from behind a pile of rubble. Venus seemed unable to straighten her back, but her face was pure determination. “Let’s split up and start looking.”

“Mercury says she’s ahead of us—”

Jupiter was cut off by a groan of exertion and a small rumble as Mars dug herself out. “Usagi!”

Venus nodded at Jupiter and Mercury; all four limped forward, fanning out. Four hoarse, increasingly desperate voices calling _Sailor Moon!_ all over the ruins of Infinity Area, four exhausted forms driven forward by crippling fear for the one that brought them all together. If their knees gave way under them, they pushed themselves up. If their lungs burned, they coughed before shouting again.

Protect the Princess. The single most important duty, hard-wired into their very souls thousands of years ago, now overlaid and overshadowed with the need to ensure their best friend was safe.

It felt like hours before Venus yelled louder than before.

“I found her!”

That was enough to send the other three running over, paying no mind to their own injuries, stumbling and falling and running again. Usagi was on her hands and knees, her fuku the fairer version of a secondary transformation, torn and shredded; her hair was a mess; her face was terrifyingly blank; and the crystal of her heart was glimmering in front of her chest.

Venus was next to her, a hand carefully on Moon’s back and their faces level, talking in a soft voice. Mars dropped to her knees in front of Moon nearly without slowing down, gripped her shoulders.

“Usagi! Hey, Usagi!”

“I’ve tried that already,” Venus said quietly.

Mars patted Moon’s cheek, not hard enough for it to actually hurt. “Usagi. Come on, Usagi.”

Mercury gingerly lowered herself down, leaning on a piece of debris for support, and covered one of Moon’s hand with her own. “Sailor Moon... can you hear us?”

Jupiter got down on one knee beside her, and placed her hand next to Venus’. “Please answer. Give us a sign.”

No response. Nothing worked. Not the pleading, not the touch, not Mars calling her name repeatedly and in an increasingly panicked voice.

“Guys,” Venus finally lifted her head. “Let’s unite our hearts again.”

The other three nodded immediately, desperate for a solution. For the third time that day, all four were surrounded with a flickering aura of light—significantly weaker than before, but this time, it wasn’t strength that mattered. They called Usagi’s name again, four voices as one.

A small frown appeared on Sailor Moon’s forehead. Her arms trembled slightly.

“Usagi?” Mars tried again.

Moon’s eyes drifted closed, and she collapsed into Mars’ arms; the heart crystal shimmered back into her chest, and her secondary transformation faded away, leaving the blue skirt and red ribbons they all knew.

“Usagi!”

Mercury reached up to summon her visor again, and this time, she deactivated it herself after solid ten seconds. “She’s unconscious. But vitals are strong. She’s not in danger.”

Jupiter sagged slightly with a sigh of relief. “Let’s get her somewhere safe.”

“Mamoru-san’s place. It’s not far,” Venus supplied immediately. “We can regroup there and check on Chibiusa-chan, too.”

Jupiter nodded, and turned to Mars. “I’ll carry her there.”

It took them a moment to drag the completely limp Sailor Moon over the Senshi of Protection’s back; finally, when Jupiter hooked her arms under Moon’s knees, a choked-off groan escaped her lips as she forced herself to her feet.

“Are you sure... you can do this?” Mercury asked her worriedly.

“Let’s just get going,” Jupiter forced through gritted teeth. “It hurts less when I’m moving.”

To be quite honest, it hurt exactly the same when she was moving. But she needed to be doing something. This was what she was made for, damn it.

They set out in a closed V formation—Jupiter carrying Moon in the centre; Mercury and Mars securing the rear and regularly checking Moon’s pulse and breathing; Venus taking point and leading the group. She mostly chose back alleys, avoiding the main streets that were already flooding with the authorities, but tried to keep the route as short as possible. They made it through some two-thirds of the way before their luck ran out, and a fire-fighter spotted them.

“You lot! What are you doing out here!?”

Without even waiting for the man to finish, Venus turned to Mercury. “Sabão Spray.”

The fire-fighter jogged several metres closer, visibly aggravated, even as Mercury brought her hands together, then crossed her wrists.

“Hey! Get over here this instant!”

Mercury sharply swung her arms wide, and the entire area was covered in a thick fog.

“I can’t hold it for long,” she forced shakily.

“Let’s go, guys.” Venus beckoned to her companions. They managed to get clear before the mist faded. Mercury sagged against a building wall, panting. “Are you going to pass out?”

“I don’t think so,” Mercury rested both hands on her thighs, bending down a little, trying to catch her breath. “I just... need a minute.”

“Okay.” Venus nodded, then turned to Jupiter. “How are you holding up?”

Jupiter turned her head and spat out a glob of blood before answering. “Don’t worry about me. I’m ready the moment Mercury is.”

Hearing that, the Senshi of Water made an effort to straighten. “Sorry. Let’s go.”

Venus placed a hand on her shoulder. “I said you’ll get a minute, and you still have solid thirty seconds left. Mars, can you tell me where to go to avoid the fire-fighters?”

Mars closed her eyes to concentrate. It wasn’t easy, given how worried about Usagi she still was, but not impossible. There were still very few people in the vicinity—if she could focus enough to feel them... “Left, right, left, right, right,” she said slowly. “And from there straight to Mamoru-san’s place. I think, at least.”

“It’s worth a shot.” Venus glanced to Mercury, who gave her a nod. “Okay. Let’s go.”

The route described by Mars took them through narrow passageways between buildings, and it was about twice as long as just following the street, but it did spare them more encounters with the authorities; they had neither the time nor the patience for all the questions that would raise. Finally, they made it to the apartment complex Mamoru lived in, Venus checking every corner before signalling the others to follow her, and rang the doorbell.

Mamoru was the one who opened the door.

“How’s Chibiusa-chan?” Venus asked in a way of greeting.

“Sailor Saturn came to return her heart crystal. She’s asleep now,” Mamoru replied before frowning. “Where’s Usako?”

“Right here,” Venus replied, nodding towards the limp form on Jupiter’s back. “She passed out a while ago.”

“Let’s lay her down,” Jupiter said before Mamoru could try dragging Moon off her back.

Venus stepped aside, allowing those two to go past her, and followed them alongside Mercury and Mars. While they were carefully shifting Sailor Moon from Jupiter’s back to the living room’s couch—seeing as the bed was taken already—Jupiter groaned suddenly, a grimace of pain on her face.

“I think I’ve just reopened something,” she said through gritted teeth.

“You’re bleeding,” Mercury confirmed, watching the edges of a slash on the back of Jupiter’s fuku soak with red. “Mamoru-san, do you have... a first aid kit?”

“Right there,” Mamoru pointed.

Mercury retrieved the kit and gave Jupiter a stern look. “Sit down.”

“Don’t try too hard,” Jupiter grumped, but obeyed. “Just put something on it until it stops bleeding, I’ll walk the rest off.”

“We’ve all had... enough of walking,” Mercury replied somewhat dryly, activating her visor again. “You’ve bitten clean through your cheek. Except for that cut... you have three fractured ribs... and a concussion.”

“Is that why everything’s so bright?” Jupiter chuckled weakly. “Don’t fuss, I’m a Senshi. You know how fast we heal.”

“Our healing rate... is not a reason to stop... taking care of yourself,” Mercury snapped, her usually near-endless patience evidently wearing thin. “Please don’t reopen this again.”

She then turned to Mars, who was quietly sitting next to Moon along with Mamoru. Venus went straight towards the cats, who remained by Chibiusa’s bedside, confident that her companions were out of danger and thoroughly occupied.

“Is she going to be all right?” she nodded towards the girl from the future.

“Yes, her body is regenerating now,” Luna replied. “She’s not in danger anymore.”

“Mina, are you guys okay?” Artemis asked.

Venus shrugged her shoulders, keeping her expression neutral through the lance of blinding pain the movement sent through her upper back and both collarbones. “We’re hard to kill. I hear Saturn showed up with Chibiusa-chan’s heart crystal?”

“She did,” Luna confirmed. “Or her ghost did, at least. I’m not sure what happened.”

“Well, that makes the two of us,” Venus sat down with a sigh. “First Usagi-chan gets hauled off through a tear in the fabric of space itself, so the most we can do is wall off Mugen Academy to stop those formless Daimon from flooding the city. Then the thing inside fires up an insane amount of power, and shreds the ground under our feet; you might have seen that black tornado. Then there are these purple flashes at its core. If you’re saying Sailor Saturn awakened, that could’ve been her. Then we felt Usagi-chan was in a lot of pain, so we unite our hearts with hers, and I think I felt Uranus and Neptune there, too. There’s a flash of white and gold. And then she’s gone. Just... gone... like she was never there.” She paused for a moment, noticing something she first felt good two years before. Like a buzz in the back of her head. Like something was trying to re-emerge. She boxed it down for now. “And then it’s all over, that Silence monster is dying, the black tornado is easing off, we’re suddenly on the ground, and Usagi-chan is kneeling in the dirt in her secondary transformation with her heart crystal in front of her brooch. The entire Infinity Delta is a giant crater right now. No Daimon. No Messiah of Silence. No sign of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto.”

“So you pulled out to regroup. A good decision,” Artemis waved his tail approvingly. “Two cats will attract much less attention than five Sailor Senshi. Luna, let’s go investigate the site.”

“Agreed,” the black cat rose and stretched. “Venus, you and the others should rest. We’ll be back as soon as we know anything.”

“Honestly, even if you told me to do something, I’d just roll over,” Venus lied, putting a hint of her usual humour into her voice.

Artemis flicked his ear. “You’ll have the chance to roll over for a bit as soon as you let us out.”

“Sure.”

As the three of them entered Mamoru’s living room, Jupiter looked up and pressed a finger to her lips; Venus padded across as quietly as possible, let the cats out of the apartment, and came over to see Mars already fast asleep, arms and head rested on the edge of the sofa, holding one of Sailor Moon’s hands.  Nearby, Mercury was clearly having trouble keeping her eyes open; Venus slipped under one of her arms, levered Mercury to her feet, thoroughly ignored silent attempts at protests, and helped her to the other sofa. Accepting defeat, Mercury laid down and threw one arm over her eyes. Jupiter watched with a small smile, too exhausted to offer help, as Mamoru brought a pile of blankets, and two were immediately draped over Mercury and Mars.

Venus caught Jupiter’s eye. _You too_ , she mouthed at her friend.

Jupiter gave a small shake of her head. Apparently, she was under the impression they were going to sleep in shifts. As endearing and desirable as her protective tendencies usually were, at times one could find them extremely irritating.

Mamoru left the room, heading for the kitchen; Venus followed him as soon as she heard his coffee maker start up.

“Coffee?” he offered.

“No, thank you,” Venus shook her head. “And don’t give Jupiter any. She needs to sleep.”

“What about you?”

She looked at the clock. It was still too early—under the transformation, she was wearing her school uniform, and she could get in trouble walking around town in that during school hours. Then there was the fact that she could barely walk straight. “Wake me up two hours from now, and then I’ll need to use your shower.”

“Fine,” Mamoru nodded with a small frown.

Venus walked out the kitchen before he could ask what she was planning to do; she picked up one of the spare blankets, tossed it at Jupiter without ceremony, and hit her squarely in the face. The Senshi of Protection lowered the arm she raised too slowly to catch the blanket, glaring. Venus clapped her hands together in front of her face and bowed a little in an exaggerated apology, ignoring another flare of pain through her upper back. Then, she took the last blanket, wrapped it around herself, and curled up on the armchair—the only piece of furniture in Mamoru’s living room more or less suited to housing a person that wasn’t taken already.

What a sad sight they were, strewn around like that, too afraid it wasn’t over yet to undo their transformations, too exhausted to do anything other than fall asleep where they sat.

Venus herself was no exception. The moment she rested her head on something soft and closed her eyes, she was falling down a well of dreams too bright and loud to get any real rest, orange clashing against steel and black, screams from a thousand throats building up into a ghastly symphony, none louder than the anguish pulsing to the beat of her heart, the rage running through her veins. All flickered out as abruptly as it began when a much more down-to-earth pain flared through her upper back again, enough to make her slightly nauseous.

Mamoru was shaking her shoulder.

She did ask him to wake her up, didn’t she?

Venus thanked him with a nod, starting to get up. Mamoru handed her a folded towel, and pointed towards a door. The Senshi needed a moment to remember that she had planned to take a shower.

Sailor Moon hadn’t moved since they laid her down on the sofa. Mars and Mercury were still asleep, and so was Jupiter, slumped where she first sat down, a blanket wrapped around her. Out of the corner of her eye, Venus noticed a chair, a book, and an empty coffee mug near the door to the bedroom. Mamoru had evidently picked the spot where he could keep an eye both on Chibiusa and the Senshi.

She took the towel and the first aid kit, then headed for Mamoru’s bathroom. Locking the door behind her, she let her transformation fade, and took her clothes off before critically examining herself in the mirror. There were scores of shallow cuts all over her body, a rather dramatically-looking gash ripped along the side of her right thigh, and a dark, swollen bruise covering the entirety of her right shoulder blade. Minako frowned. She did have considerable trouble moving that arm. It looked like a bone was fractured. Broken, maybe.

But it wasn’t an incapacitating injury, so it could wait. Nothing short of a direct threat to her life would be enough to keep her cooped up here.

The scratches would take care of themselves soon enough; she’d just have to cover four or five with pieces of adhesive bandage to draw less attention to her sorry state. The more serious cut, seemingly from a Daimon’s claws, she’d have to dress if she was going to walk around town. Hopefully, her skirt would be long enough to conceal bandages. The swollen bruising all over her shoulder blade wouldn’t be visible through her school uniform, and didn’t warrant more attention than what she was planning to do.

Well, before she got down to business, it wouldn’t hurt to wash the sweat and dust off herself. Minako opted for a cool shower, aware that warm water would put her to sleep; it wasn’t exactly easy with a nearly useless arm, but doable. Drying herself off proved to be a even more of a challenge—even though she patted the edges of the wound in her thigh as gently as possible, the towel came away stained with blood.

With a sigh, Minako pressed the edges of the wound closed. The bleeding stopped after a while, and she reached for the first aid kit; after slapping all remaining butterfly bandages on her leg to hold the wound closed, she covered it with a sterile dressing, and wrapped an entire roll of bandage over that. She took a few steps to test her handiwork. It seemed to hold for now.

At least this time around, she didn’t have to stitch herself.

When she finally left the bathroom, she was confident that she looked presentable, if one overlooked a pale face and a slight limp. Judging from Mamoru’s expression, he didn’t.

Minako waved him over. “Did anyone wake up since we last talked?”

“No,” Mamoru shook his head. “Only Jupiter fell asleep. Usako hasn’t even moved.”

“I see.” Minako looked towards the four occupying Mamoru’s living room. Mercury had turned to her side during the past half hour. Jupiter’s lips moved wordlessly as she dreamed. Mars’ hand twitched over Moon’s. Who remained uncharacteristically still. It was painful to watch in its own respect, never mind the nightmarish recollections it triggered. “Have Artemis and Luna checked in yet?”

“I haven’t heard from them since they left,” Mamoru replied.

Minako nodded. Three of Serenity’s guards crumpled down, the Princess herself incapacitated, the cats otherwise occupied. It felt terrifyingly familiar. And there was only one event she knew of that the present could remind her of.

At least this time around, she could trust Endymion.

She turned to him with a deadly serious expression. “Prince, I’m leaving her under your protection.”

Mamoru straightened reflexively, and gave her a sharp nod. Transformation or no transformation, those were the eyes that would see him through a world of hurt if Usagi as much as stubbed her toe in his care. “I understand.”

Minako mirrored the gesture before leaving.

There were less people in the streets than usual, and they did seem a little more on edge than normally, but Azabu-Juuban was far from deserted. Apparently, a year of near-constant supernatural incidents made the residents somewhat used to disasters of varying severity, and the Sailor Senshi’s tendencies to prevent anything apocalyptic. Never mind the energy-leeching monsters running rampant, the time-travelling UFOs, or the black crystal dwarfing most skyscrapers and crackling with ominous lightning—unless the situation warranted a city-wide evacuation, it was business as usual. It was somewhat endearing, but also a reminder how much these people relied on a half dozen of teenaged vigilantes.

On her way to a bus stop, Minako bought some takoyaki from a street vendor. She was famished, but didn’t want to delay any longer than absolutely inevitable; she could eat while walking. It did help a little, but not as much as she’d hoped. It wasn’t long before she found herself struggling to keep her eyes open. That wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all. She had to cross a park anyway, and if she remembered right, there was a vending machine there, on a small square with a fountain.

She did remember right, and the vending machine was still there. Minako slid in a few coins to get an energy drink. As she straightened, she noticed a fast food on the other side of the square.

The cashier gave her a surprised look, but didn’t say anything when she ordered a small coffee in a large cup for takeout. She decided to get out of his sight before proceeding; the coffee was too hot to drink straight away, too. Halfway to her destination, she realized it was getting really hard to keep walking straight. She paused for a moment, and leaned against a building wall for support. Her upper back protested sharply against direct contact with hard concrete.

“I’m going to die,” Minako said quietly, to no one in particular. Then, she cracked open the energy drink she bought moments before, poured its entirety into her coffee, and drained the mixture in one go.

The first effect she noticed was that her heartbeat quickened. The second—her awareness rapidly spiked, to the point of an underlying anxiety. That was okay, though. She’d rather endure that than miss anything important.

She had never seen Usagi with even a remotely similar expression. Anger, grief, pain—yes, but not the catatonic shock of someone who had seen too much suffering to still react to anything. Never. And as that ghastly blank stare didn’t even ring a bell while so many other things did, Minako would hazard a guess that she had never seen Serenity make that face, either. Not even when the Silver Millennium fell.

Outside from what Artemis and Luna had told all five of them, Minako had but a few disjointed, vague memories of that time. A single one of these was enough to pour scorching anguish through her blood, make her feel like something deep inside her chest was broken and its pieces were crunching against one another, and fill her with an urge to scream in agony while making it seem like her mouth was sewn shut. She could say, from personal experience and without a doubt, that it was more painful than dying.

And Usagi just went through something unspeakably worse. Something that blasted her straight past resistance, tears, or denial. Minako wasn’t there to protect her. None of them were. She couldn’t fix that—but she could do the next best thing.

None of the Senshi of the outer solar system checked in with them, not even Pluto, who had repeatedly displayed willingness to work alongside Sailor Moon. The most she knew was that Neptune and Uranus were alive moments before the Silence monster was vanquished. Nothing since then.

Artemis and Luna were still investigating the battlefield. That was all well and good, but Minako was going to do her own investigation instead of wasting time waiting for the cats to return. And when Usagi woke up, she was going to have good news.

She had scouted out where Haruka and Michiru lived weeks before, just in case. The apartment complex had surveillance cameras and security guards. Neither was going to be a problem. Not for Aino Minako.

She reached into a pocket of her skirt with her good hand. Her fingertips brushed over a small compact mirror.

“Crescent Moon Power, transform: change me into an old lady,” she said quietly. A moment later, she stepped out of the shadow, walked up to the door, and started ineffectual attempts at pushing it open. After twenty seconds of putting on a show, a security guard opened the door from the inside.

“Here, ma’am.”

“Thank you, young man,” Minako gave him a wrinkly smile, and began to spin a yarn of how she came to visit her grandson. After solid two minutes of that, sprinkled heavily with how familiar to said grandson the security guard looked, she asked for directions to the elevator. The guard pointed her in the right way, visibly relieved, and they parted ways.

She should be grateful that the Talisman-bearers had enough money to live in a penthouse, really. Only the elevator entrance was under surveillance. Which meant she could safely drop the charade before getting to the door.

“Venus Star Power, make up.”

She pressed a gloved palm to the keyhole. Mercury and Mars had powers based on their guardian planets’ elemental affiliation, water and fire respectively. Jupiter’s powers over the element of wood seemed, so far, limited to her knack for growing things out of uniform. So it stood to reason that although Venus had taken to proudly call herself the goddess of love, she was not entirely removed from powers over metal.

Of course, if that didn’t work, she could just Crescent Beam the door apart.

But maybe if she just focused...

With a small clink, the lock fell open. Venus allowed herself a wide grin. Then, she forced herself to regain her composure, and snuck inside the apartment.

It was empty.

Sure, the furniture was still there, but nothing hinted on anyone ever living there. At least there were no signs of battle, either. Venus frowned. She was certain she had the right address. And she’d be damned if she left without making sure.

It took her a good half hour, but eventually, she found a forgotten blouse. Venus sniffed at it. That was definitely Michiru’s perfume. She did have the right address; Uranus and Neptune seemed to have just picked up sticks and moved the hell out. Over the course of three hours. As much as she disliked their methods, she couldn’t deny they got results.

She dropped her transformation, went to the roof, and disguised herself as a window cleaner (complete with necessary gear) to safely get to the ground without using the door. As she rounded the corner, back in her school uniform again, she came across a guy rubbing a piece of cloth over a motorbike. Minako immediately recognized the vehicle as one of Haruka’s bikes.

The guy noticed her, and flashed his best impression of a sultry smile. “Cool, huh?”

“Yeah,” she played along immediately. “Where’d you get it?”

“Oh, just bought it a few hours ago, from that blonde guy. A real bargain.”

Minako could feel her own eyes glint in triumph. “Tell me more.”

~*~

Consciousness was settling in very slowly, having to take account of everything that was wrong. And a lot of things were wrong. For instance, Usagi was silent and still, save for the steady rise and fall of her chest—and she was never that still, even while sleeping. Then there was the fact that Usagi was still transformed. And come to think of it, she was Mars instead of Rei, too. And she was hurting all over. And there was at least one other thing that she couldn’t exactly pinpoint.

A hand touched her shoulder. She looked up to see Jupiter, a weary smile on her face.

“Hey, you awake?”

“Yes,” Mars made an effort to sit up. Jupiter handed her a cup of hot chocolate. “Thanks.”

It was divine. As was anything made with love by Kino Makoto.

“I thought we all need it, but you look even worse than Mercury and I,” Jupiter sat down on the edge of an armchair. “Bad dreams?”

“No,” Mars replied. A few seconds later, she froze. That was it. “I _didn’t_ have nightmares.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

Mars looked to her friend. “Jupiter, I’ve been dreaming of Silence destroying the world every night, ever since the first Daimon showed up. I didn’t dream of it now. It’s over. It’s done.”

Jupiter sagged slightly with a sigh of relief, and let her transformation fade. In the place of a battered Sailor Senshi, there now was an impossibly tired schoolgirl. “Thank goodness.”

Mars followed her example, slightly relieved to put her combat uniform to rest, and immediately slipped her shoes off. “Where are the others?”

“Ami-chan’s in the shower. Mamoru-san just went out for groceries, since...” Makoto glanced to Sailor Moon, still unconscious. “Well. We might be here a while. Artemis and Luna are investigating what’s left of Mugen Academy.”

“What about Minako-chan?”

Makoto averted her eyes, a hint of embarrassment creeping into her expression and tone. “No idea. She was right here when I dozed off. The next thing I know, she’s gone, and Mamoru-san just says she went out.”

Before Rei could do anything other than sigh, Ami emerged from the bathroom, a towel over still damp hair, moving somewhat gingerly. “Rei-chan. How are... you feeling?”

“Better than before I slept,” Rei replied, something in her friend’s appearance and speech tripping an alarm flag. “What about you?”

“Fractured sternum. Hurts on every... deeper breath,” Ami said calmly, even as Makoto rose to help her over to the free sofa. “Thank you.”

“You look like you should lie down,” Makoto offered.

“Yes.”

“To be honest, you look like you should go to a hospital,” Rei corrected.

Ami looked over to the unmoving form of Sailor Moon, a rare look of unyielding determination on her face. “Not yet.”

“I think we should all go to a hospital,” Makoto said, helping Ami find a comfortable position. “But I doubt any of us would before making sure Sailor Moon is all right.”

Rei could say nothing to contradict that.

Ami summoned up her palmtop soon, but kept glancing towards Moon every few minutes; when asked what she was doing, she explained in short, broken sentences that she wasn’t exactly doing anything of utmost importance or actually relevant to the situation, but she simply had to keep herself occupied through the wait. Soon after, Mamoru came back from the supermarket, and Makoto exiled herself to the kitchen. Time passed, and there was little to be said—Mamoru paced between the living room occupied by the Senshi and the bedroom, where Chibiusa slept; Ami worked; Makoto cooked; Rei sat by Usagi’s bedside like a guard dog, holding her hand.

“It’s getting late,” Mamoru finally broke the silence. “I’ll call Usako’s home, let them know she and Chibiusa are safe.”

“Good idea,” Makoto supplied from the kitchen, if only to make it seem like there was a conversation, not just a random sentence that was going to echo through everyone’s ears for the next few hours of silence.

It did anyway, even as Mamoru went over to the stationary phone.

“This is Chiba Mamoru. Shingo-kun, correct? Are your parents home? Could I speak to her?” A pause. “Tsukino Ikuko-san? Chiba Mamoru speaking. Usagi and Chibiusa are visiting me; I’m calling to make sure you aren’t worried, considering that strange phenomenon in the morning. Yes, they’re all right.” Another pause. “Ah... yes. Thank you. Goodbye.”

“That might not have been the best lie to tell them, Mamoru-san,” Makoto commented from the entrance to the kitchen, wiping a clean frying pan dry.

“It’s not a lie. They aren’t hurt,” Mamoru replied without a hint of defensiveness in his voice. The three Senshi exchanged glances. “If any of you would like to use the phone, feel free.”

Makoto shrugged, her expression neutral. “Nobody will be looking for me.”

“What time is it?” Ami asked, not looking up from her minicomputer.

“Almost five o’clock,” Makoto answered.

“No need, then. Mother probably isn’t... back home yet. Double shift at work.”

Rei lowered her head. “I should probably call my grandfather.” She really, really should. But that meant she would have to leave Usagi’s side, even if just for a moment.

“Go ahead.” Mamoru walked over and sat on the edge of the sofa. He was probably trying to convey that he’d take over for Rei while she made the call home. It didn’t exactly make anything better. But it had to make do.

Bracing herself like for a headlong jump into a swimming pool, Rei let go of Usagi’s limp hand, and went towards the phone.

_{Hello, Hino residence,}_ a sepulchral voice greeted her.

“Yuuichiro?” Why was he even answering the phone?

_{Rei-san! Are you all right?!}_

“Yes, I’m not hurt,” Rei assured him, the gashes all across her stomach, chest, and the back of her neck insisting very much otherwise. “Yuuichiro, if my grandfather is nearby, could I talk to him?”

_{Yes, of course, right away!}_

She waited even as Yuuichiro yelled his ridiculously respectful _oshishou-sama!_ loudly enough to be heard in the courtyard, no doubt. A moment later, she heard a familiar voice.

_{Is that you, Rei?}_

“Yes,” she replied immediately, trying to ignore the way her throat tightened. She didn’t think just hearing her grandfather’s voice would bring her this close to tears. Then again, it _was_ the only relative she had left that she actually felt a familial bond with, and the only person she didn’t always have to be strong for. Unlike Usagi, whom she regularly had to bully or tease into dealing with the simplest aspects of life. “I’m all right, but I’ll be home late... I’m watching over a friend.”

_{All right. Take care, Rei.}_

“You too, Grandpa.”

With that, she hung up, and returned to her place at Sailor Moon’s side.

“Dinner is ready, in case anyone’s hungry,” Makoto said after a few minutes.

No one was hungry, but eventually, they agreed that they should eat something. To say that there was plenty of food would be an understatement—there was enough ramen to feed a dozen people, a generous amount of stewed salmon for the cats, and an apricot pie in the oven. And when she was done with cleaning after all that, Makoto set to making hard sugar candies.

She needed something to keep herself occupied, too.

~*~

In the relative privacy of a public restroom, Minako used her teeth to tear open the packet holding a freshly bought roll of bandage. The wound in her leg was starting to bleed again—and given the amount of walking she was doing for the entire day, the only thing that surprised her was that it didn’t happen sooner. Wrapping the new bandage over the old dressing, she went through a mental checklist. She scouted out nearly every place Haruka and Michiru liked to hang out at, each time in a different disguise; she knew that lots of different people asking about two celebrities all around town would draw far less attention than one person asking about two celebrities all around town.

Perks of experience as an idol chaser.

Her old compact was getting dimmer with every disguise she assumed, but it could manage one more. And one was all she needed. The only place she hasn’t checked out yet was the fancy café they seemed to frequent—and where she had followed them after first losing to Haruka on the driving game.

Getting a rematch on that thing could wait, though. There were more important issues to tend to first.

She casually strolled past the café, glancing through the window. There was a slightly nerdy-looking woman in her twenties at the counter—the same she once spotted staring at Michiru with a worshipper’s awe. Perfect. Minako rounded the corner, ensured there was no one in earshot or line of sight.

“Crescent Moon Power, transform: change me into an art college student.”

The disguise made her a little taller, throwing her off balance through the first few steps, but she regained her footing quickly. She walked into the café and claimed a bar stool by the counter. The server smiled at her.

“Welcome, please come in. What would you like to order?”

“A cup of herbal tea, please,” Minako gave a charming smile. She had enough coffee for the next few months. “And maybe a chat?”

“What would you like to chat about, sir?” the server returned the smile.

So far, so good. Minako waved her hand in an exaggerated manner. “Oh dear, ‘sir’? No no, we can’t have that. It’s Tamotsu.”

The server laughed softly. “My name is Shiori. Nice to meet you.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” Minako sipped her tea, then leaned confidentially over the counter. “To tell the truth, Shiori-san, I heard Kaioh Michiru comes here sometimes. Her paintings are simply amazing... I was hoping I could meet her in person, maybe even get an autograph.”

The server shook her head, still smiling. “You’re out of luck, Tamotsu-san. She was just here.”

“Really?”

“Yes—she always comes with this incredibly handsome boy, too. Tall, blonde, really athletic. But this time, they came with a baby girl, I cannot express how cute she was.”

Minako’s look of surprise was only partially acting. “A baby girl?”

“The sweetest little thing, I swear. Black-haired, and I think her eyes were purple.”

As the server rambled on, gushing about how picturesque the three looked, Minako smiled and nodded and gave an occasional interjection, all while processing the news. She only knew two people with purple eyes: Rei and Hotaru.

Rei was at Usagi’s bedside. And come to think of it, the Senshi of the outer reaches of the solar system did call Saturn _the soldier of ruin and birth_.

So following the defeat of that Silence monster, Sailor Saturn died and was immediately reborn. Then, Uranus and Neptune snatched the baby and, apparently, decided to raise her somewhere else than Minato. If that was true—and everything seemed to point towards it—then Usagi was right, and there really was a decent bone in the distant Senshi’s bodies.

She wasted ten more minutes on small talk with Shiori, learning in the process that Haruka, Michiru, and Hotaru left about an hour ago. Given Haruka’s driving tendencies, they could be halfway to Kyoto by now. Then Minako paid for her tea, bid the friendly server farewell, and began to head back to Mamoru’s apartment. She rang the doorbell, and only waited a short moment before Mamoru opened the door.

“Come in.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Minako slipped her shoes off, relishing the upcoming opportunity to sit down on something soft.

Makoto, Ami, Rei, Mamoru, Artemis, and Luna were all gathered in the living room. Sailor Moon appeared to have never moved.

“Mina! Where have you been?” Artemis chastised her sharply.

“Around,” Minako replied dismissively, a reflex well-practiced in interactions with her parents.

“You were supposed to rest!”

“I did. For a while.”

“Never mind that,” Luna spoke up. “We’ve just come back from the Infinity Sandbank. There are no signs of the Death Busters at all; the passage to their headquarters is gone.”

“And I haven’t dreamt of Silence for the first time in months,” Rei added. “I think it’s really over.”

“There’s a good chance for that,” Luna nodded. “Ami-chan, there are a few spots I’d like you to double-check with your computer and visor later.”

“I’ll have to... heal first,” Ami replied.

“That goes without saying,” the black cat’s tail twitched slightly. “Honestly, Minako-chan...”

“Usagi?” Rei spoke up suddenly.

Everyone immediately fell silent, turning to Sailor Moon; her eyes were open. She stared at the ceiling for a long while, then blinked, and slowly sat up. Judging from how Luna’s fur suddenly stood on end—and from Usagi’s perpetual tardiness—that was not normal.

Mamoru leaned over her. “Usako.”

It took her a moment to look up at him, and even then, her expression didn’t change. It was still that blank, numb stare. When she finally spoke, her voice was small, and a little hoarse.

“What happened to Chibiusa?”

“Sailor Saturn brought her heart crystal back,” Mamoru replied. “She’s all right now, and sleeping.”

Moon gave a small nod. “And Hotaru-chan?”

Mamoru, Ami, Makoto, and Rei looked to the cats.

“We haven’t come across any trace of the outer solar system’s Senshi,” Luna admitted, while Artemis averted his eyes.

“I have,” Minako spoke up. All heads turned to her—even Moon, though considerably more slowly than the others. “Whatever happened during the battle, Hotaru-chan was reincarnated as a baby straight after. It looks like Haruka-san and Michiru-san intend to raise her now; all three left Tokyo about an hour ago.”

“How did you even learn all that?” Makoto asked incredulously.

A fierce glint appeared in Minako’s eyes. “Never underestimate the information network of Aino Minako.”

“Have you found out anything about Setsuna-san?” Sailor Moon asked, still in that uncharacteristically quiet voice.

Minako gritted her teeth for a moment. “I haven’t,” she admitted, feeling as if she was reporting a lost battle. “But she’s got a tendency to come and go as she likes, doesn’t she? I bet she just left for the Gates of Time and Space.”

“That is possible,” Luna agreed carefully. “I’m not quite sure how she managed to leave her post in the first place. It seems logical that she would return there as soon as possible.”

Moon only lowered her head again.

“Usagi?” Rei prompted gently.

Sailor Moon rested a hand over her brooch and closed her eyes for a moment, letting her transformation fade. Luna leapt onto her lap, positioning herself so that Usagi would have to look at her.

“Usagi-chan?”

“What?” Usagi mumbled.

“Can you tell us what happened during the battle?” Luna hazarded.

This time, the reaction was immediate—Usagi’s expression changed to one of catatonic, broken horror. Everyone in the room moved, ready to fight off whatever did this to her. If only that was possible.

Rei squeezed on Usagi’s hand. “Usagi, that’s okay, you don’t have to think about it now.” When that earned no response, the shrine maiden forced herself to focus her sixth sense, and reached up to touch her best friend’s cheek with her free hand. “Usagi?”

There was a slight shift in the abyss of numbness Usagi’s emotions have turned into. At least she could still hear them.

“Hey, Usagi, Mako-chan made us lots of food,” Rei tried again. “It’s really good. Are you hungry?”

It felt like she was casting a rope into that abyss, over and over again, in hopeless attempts to find what could’ve well been gone forever. And then, suddenly, something grasped on that rope.

Usagi gave a small nod. “Yeah.”

Makoto leapt to her feet, and was back with a generous bowlful of ramen in the blink of an eye. “Anyone else hungry?”

Ami raised a hand, and Minako seconded her immediately. Rei wasn’t sure if she didn’t imagine it, but it felt like Usagi squeezed back on her hand a little before pulling away to focus on her food. She was eating in silence, not even managing an ‘itadakimasu’ before starting, and considerably more slowly than usual.

“Do you like it?” Makoto asked finally.

Rei concentrated again. Another rope cast into the dark. Another shift in that void, as if something was trying to gather its bearings, even as Usagi looked up.

“Yeah... it’s really good.”

Maybe that was it. Maybe they could get through to her like that. So Rei started talking, and she babbled on and on and on about everything that was not the morning’s battle—and ever so slowly, Usagi’s expression was becoming less distant, less vacant—until she literally couldn’t think of anything, and turned to her friends with a look so desperate that Makoto immediately took over, and then Minako did, Ami skipping her turn since she still had trouble breathing, let alone talking.

~*~

Usagi could feel herself being slow. She could feel there was a noticeable delay between a question and what little she could manage as a response. It was hard to squeeze out even that much. It was like someone had put a roll of cotton wool between her and the entire world; it took a while for sounds to register, she could barely feel the thick blanket over her legs, barely taste Makoto’s ramen.

But she could see the desperation on their faces. She could see they were going crazy worrying about her. And that they were trying everything they could think of to help.

They were giving her everything they had and were. And she wasn’t going to fail them. She was going to be worthy of their trust and devotion.

That decision felt like a physical exertion—like she started to claw her way up from a bottomless well full of tar.

But then, Rei was talking to her, and she knew which direction to claw her way in. And then it was Makoto’s voice, and then Minako’s, and although she couldn’t hear Ami, she knew that Ami was out there as well, trying to help, cheering her on. And then it was Rei’s voice again, and she could recognize most of the words. Then it was Makoto again, and she would slowly catch on the topic. And then it was Minako again.

“So I said to him, I said, ‘you look so much like my grandson’ and the look on his face, I swear. So agonized. Like: oh no, this old lady is going to make me listen about her grandson now, isn’t she?”

“Grandkids already? You’ve started early, Minako-chan,” Usagi commented.

Three seconds later, Ami burst into tears, and then Makoto did too, and then Rei tackled Usagi with a bear hug, shaking like a leaf.

“Says the person whose daughter is sleeping in the next room!” Minako shot back, laughing only somewhat hysterically through tears of relief.

“This and that are two entirely different things,” Usagi argued.

She wasn’t completely up to speed yet. Not after what she had seen when she followed Saturn to the centre of Pharaoh 90. But with their help, she would be soon enough.

As long as those four were by her side, she could accomplish anything, endure anything, and raise a city of crystal from the rubble of whatever was going to fall.


	3. The Price Paid Without A Choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I’m working on three updates and a major project for TftMK, but right now, Doc Holligay (the First of Her Name, Queen of the Neptunians and the Uranians and the First Lesbians, Angstlord of the Tumblr HaruMichi Circle, Executioner of the Realm, Khaleesi of the Great Sea of Tears, called Satan, the Fiendish, Mother of Gays) rolled in with her Same Prompt Fic Party and you know the ancient proverb... one does not simply say no to a high femme.
> 
> The prompt is as follows: **everything I had to sacrifice.**

If one was willing to overlook mandatory evacuation of an entire city ward, the past month had gone remarkably well. The hospitals weren’t overcrowded, the unrest was manageable, and there were only a few deaths so far.

If one was willing to overlook three enormous pillars of black linking the earth and the sky, one could almost pretend all was well with the world.

At least some of the Senshi were not willing to overlook that. Which was how Michiru found herself in uniform, on the right side of a wedge formation, the entire group slaughtering their way through an endless flood of monsters and moving towards the second of the three black pillars. Uranus fought on the left side; Venus led the formation, flanked by Mars and Jupiter; Mercury secured the rear; Moon walked in the centre, gathering her strength.

“Another wave at five o’clock!” Mercury yelled. “Venus, we’ll get surrounded!”

“Shore up the rear! Diamond formation!” Venus roared, dispatching a monster with a slash of the Moon longsword.

Out of the corner or her eye, Neptune could see Saturn, Mercury, and Pluto obeying. She only had the time to ponder that transforming the wedge into the diamond would leave her right flank unprotected—and that the same was true for Haruka’s left—before the world was reduced to not getting killed and throwing a Deep Submerge after a Deep Submerge into the near endless flood of enemies, the crackling lightning hurled by Jupiter wiping the field in front of her clean and the dark mists boiling forth at Pluto’s call guarding her back.

The sacrifices paid in sweat stinging her eyes and short breaths burning the back of her throat were so common and so insignificant, she had long since stopped counting them.

“Venus-chan, that’s close enough,” she heard Sailor Moon say.

“Everyone halt and stand your ground!” Venus shouted in turn.

Moments later, a brilliant flash shone forth from within the Senshi formation, powerful enough to erase the still encroaching monsters; instead of Sailor Moon, the heiress to the White Moon clan stood in the centre, the Silver Crystal in her hands. A ray of light struck the pillar, cracks emerging in the solid black immediately. The few surviving monsters, running towards the Senshi, slowed down to a halt and started to double-back; before they could get there, however, the black pillar shattered and faded away. The silver light flickered out, and the Princess staggered back, her dress of white and gold giving way to the blue and red of her combat uniform.

“I can’t handle three in a row,” she said shakily.

That was not something any of them wanted to hear.

“What if you rest for a while?” Mars asked. “Can you cleanse the third one then?

Sailor Moon nodded, still panting. “I think so. I just need a minute.”

They did not have a minute. One look at Venus’ face confirmed that she, too, was aware of that.

“I didn’t expect that crazy big wave,” Jupiter stretched her back. “Where did it even come from?”

“The third strongpoint, I think,” Mercury replied, turning towards the last black pillar, palmtop out and the visor over her eyes. “And it looks like they’re fortifying there now.”

Mars frowned. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Alright then,” Venus spoke up. “Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars: take Sailor Moon and hole up somewhere safe. Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto: with me. Let’s give the enemy something to do.”

Moon gave her a long look. “Be safe.”

“That’s my line,” Venus smirked, then waved the older Senshi to follow her.

The Senshi split up—one group heading away from the last pillar, the other towards it. Neptune glanced at Venus. The younger Senshi didn’t look worried, or tense, or grim. She seemed to be looking forward to the challenge they were about to face. Neptune allowed herself a small sigh; that would work on Haruka, no doubt, but not on anyone else. She knew it was a mask, while Saturn and Pluto most likely didn’t care.

“How much time do you think we should buy them?” Uranus asked.

Venus shook her head with a cocksure smile. “We’re not buying them time. We’re bringing that pillar down.”

Uranus frowned at her. “You know we can’t purify it.”

“Nope. But we can demolish it. Have you noticed what those monsters do when the pillar is getting damaged? They start scrambling right back to rebuild it with their own bodies. If we can whittle it down until it’s incapable of spitting out more troops, the rest will be a piece of cake.”

“It’s a risky plan,” Neptune spoke up.

“You got a better idea? No? Didn’t think so.” Venus pointed towards the fire escape stairs of a nearby building. “Let’s get up on that roof. We need to destroy the strongpoint before it starts spawning offshoots. Like the two we’ve just brought down, by the way. If we weren’t running against a time limit, you know what I’d be going for right now? A donut. Sadly, the enemy is too rude to let us rest up.”

“We’ve had our hands full when there was nine of us against one pillar,” Neptune reminded, her tone a little more crisp. “Now you want us to achieve the same with the five of us?”

“No,” Venus replied evenly, surveying the area from atop the roof. It was a good vantage point; the park ahead had been scorched down to the ground, creating a swathe of open terrain between the building and the pillar. “I want us to do the same with the three of us—myself, you, and your girlfriend.”

“Wife,” Uranus muttered stubbornly.

“Wife, whatever.” Venus then turned to the four Outer Senshi, looking serious for once. “Listen up. Plan A is for Uranus, Neptune, and me to bring that pillar down. If we can’t do that, Plan B is for us three to draw out the troops around it and create an opening; when we manage to do that, or when we die—Pluto, you stop time, and Saturn, you swing the Glaive on that pillar before the clock starts moving again.”

Neptune froze, as did Uranus. Saturn merely gave a nod. Pluto bowed her head slightly.

“I understand.”

Uranus’ hands clenched into fists. Neptune merely gritted her teeth, swallowing down the urge to lash out and make all present reconsider. In the quiet corner of her mind, where she could be honest with herself, Michiru had to admit that what the four of them did was nothing other than playing house. Two young women famous ever since their teens and an ageless protector of the time-space continuity, co-parenting for the avatar of destruction—had it been less absurd, it would make a prime theme for a cheap paperback novel sold with the anniversary issue of a tabloid. But she had allowed Hotaru and Setsuna into her heart, she had allowed herself to grow accustomed to their presence, to grow fond of them, to come to depend on them. It was still playing house, and everybody knew it, but maybe it was a game worth playing. She would never love them more than she loved Haruka, but maybe it was enough to love them as well as love Haruka.

And now she had to watch them acknowledge suicidal orders without batting an eyelash. It was not her choice and not her sacrifice to make, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

“Hey, lesbians,” Venus’s voice wasn’t any softer. “Let’s go.”

Uranus looked over her shoulder at the two Senshi left behind as the three of them walked down the fire escape stairs again. “I am not raising this family again,” she growled through gritted teeth.

Neptune reached to take her hand without a word, and barely kept herself from wincing when Uranus squeezed on it, almost hard enough to fracture something.

“Then we’d better break that pillar on our own,” Venus deadpanned without making eye contact.

“ _Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight_ , was it?” Neptune said icily.

“Tell me papa Sun Tzu was wrong when he said that,” Venus replied. “Go on and say it, if you can.”

“One day, you will go too far,” Neptune’s voice was silky damnation. “And I will be there to watch.”

“Ah, but it is not this day.” Venus tapped the flat of the Holy Sword’s blade against her shoulder and turned around. There was no doubt she noticed them holding hands, but apparently she chose to refrain from another jokingly scathing comment about lesbians being lesbians. “Okay. We’re in the no-man’s-land. See that scorched line? The moment you cross it, cut loose. Nothing is off-limits. Collateral damage is not an issue anymore. You want a cyclone? Be my guest. You want a tsunami? Go right ahead. First order of business is destroying that pillar. I’ll do what I do best, namely the flashy, attention-grabbing shit. Kindly make use of that before somebody has to die.”

“You’re not dying before I get payback, with interest, out of your ass,” Uranus told her flatly, a hint of anger stirring under the calm surface of her voice, like the paws of a sleeping tiger twitching in dreams of a hunt.

“Ooh, kinky.” Venus then turned to Neptune—who said nothing. There were no more words to be spoken. But her eyes held darkness as cold and merciless as the deepest trenches sheared into the bottom of the ocean. Venus withstood that gaze for solid ten seconds. “Alright. Let’s go.”

She spun on her heel, and lifted the guard of the Holy Sword to her face. Uranus folded her hands over her chest, drawing the Space Sword out. Neptune brought hers together, allowing the Deep Aqua Mirror to take physical form.

In the scorched park between the Senshi and the thick pillar of black, three needles of light shot up into the sky—golden, azure, and teal. Venus broke into a sprint, raising her free hand mid-pace; a tangle of energy chains swirled through the air, boring through an enemy barricade like the head of a drill, sending a dozen monsters chasing after her. Uranus bent her knees and leapt straight up, the air folding around her to welcome her home; once held aloft in the heavens, she tilted her head back and sang a single note, the wind abruptly picking up to answer her call. Neptune turned towards where she knew the nearest shore was and reached out; she could almost smell the brine, feel the tide licking her feet, even as she slowly raised her hand and watched the sea rise in a menacing wall.

One of the golden chains snaked out to wrap around a street lamp, and Venus swung herself upwards, landing in a roll atop a building; even as the monsters scaled the walls to follow her, a volley of energy beams lanced out to riddle another barricade with holes, sending another unit of monsters after her. The blonde Senshi was roof-hopping now, circling the black pillar to dismantle as many fortifications as she could. Neptune noted that with reluctant approval, but ceased those observations to look up when she heard Uranus sing a different note. Their eyes met, and they exchanged a nod—a wordless agreement they had practiced since their last life, since before they had even fallen for each other.

The wind howled eagerly. The sea whispered its willingness. Uranus spread her arms, raising a tornado powerful enough to sweep up small rubbish and dust; Neptune swung her hand down, and the tidal wave roared forth. The salt water collided with the whirlwind. A titanic waterspout sheared through the gap torn in the enemy fortifications by Venus, free to hammer directly against the pillar of black. A bass rumble vibrated through the air, resonating under the three Senshi’s ribs. The monsters chasing Venus turned their backs on her thoughtlessly, heading towards the pillar, leaving themselves open to being cut down by a short burst of Crescent Beams. The golden chains coiled through the air once more, dragging more monsters away from the pillar, throwing them into the street or the walls to destroy them before they could rebuild their home. But Venus could not keep them all away, and so when the waterspout fell apart, the pillar was still standing.

Neptune twirled her Talisman in both hands, and a flash of light converged on a crack in the now-faceted black. A swing of the Space Sword high above, and with a deafening boom, the crack deepened. More still was needed, and Neptune extended a hand to draw the tide back; another tidal wave rose up, salt water crested with foam. Only this time, it was not sent into the black pillar—it was sent into the nearest building. The wind howled immediately as Uranus drew the rubble into another whirlwind, and bombarded the black pillar with chunks of concrete and steel. Another deafening boom. Tiny pieces of the cracked black started crumbling off. At Neptune’s command, the waves surged through the empty space, washing monsters away before they could repair the damage.

The pillar was still standing.

And in front of it was a Senshi, the Holy Sword raised in both hands above her head, its blade sheathed in golden light.

“Venus!” Uranus’ scream carried over the demolished field.

When the blonde Senshi spoke, her voice rang out like a bronze bell. “May the Queen reign ten thousand years.”

And with that, she swung the longsword down, shearing through the base of the black pillar. A bass groan rang out, and the pillar came crashing down, pieces raining out in every direction. One of those pieces hit Neptune’s shoulder, and she couldn’t quite swallow down a scream of pain. Either the joint was dislocated, or the collarbone was broken.

Another of the pieces struck Uranus; the Senshi of the skies started rapidly losing altitude. A golden chain snaked out to snatch her from mid-air; a swirl of salt water rose to engulf her and soften the landing. Gritting her teeth in pain, Neptune lowered her good arm and started trotting towards the spot where Uranus fell from the sky. The trot became a sprint when she heard Venus roaring her name in a voice that could only be described as urgent. She found the blonde Senshi in a crouch next to Uranus—who appeared disoriented, and there was a trail of blood running down her forehead and cheek, but she was inexplicably alive.

“Concussion,” Venus informed, even as Neptune dropped to her knees by Uranus’ side. “She’ll live. Wanted me to yell for you because she misses her girlfriend already, apparently “

“Wife,” Uranus insisted, surprisingly coherently, before wincing. “Fuck. My head. I can fucking feel a fracture. There goes the Dakar Rally.”

“Wife. Whatever.” Venus then looked up at, eyes immediately flicking to the trail of blood staining Neptune’s shoulderguard. “Your arm?”

“I’ll live,” Neptune replied curtly.

Venus nodded, threw one of Uranus’ arms over her shoulders, and started dragging the taller Senshi forward.

They made it back Saturn and Pluto without mishap, where the Garnet Rod, the Silence Glaive, and a Love Me Chain were combined into a makeshift stretcher. Then they made it to the spot claimed by Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Mercury, where the Outer Senshi were finally permitted a rest. Venus moved between her friends immediately, reporting on her actions and exchanging estimates for the future. In less than ten minutes, a recon party has been agreed on. When Neptune rose from the bench she claimed for herself, Venus shook her head.

“You aren’t coming.”

Neptune managed to keep her expression neutral only by virtue of long, painstaking practice. “You can’t afford to exclude me from this. You need everyone who’s still capable of walking.”

Venus’ eyes narrowed. Calm and cold, harder than the steel of the longsword she still held in her right hand. “What I need from you is your loyalty. We both know who’s the guarantee of that.” She nodded towards the door. “Go give your girlfriend a kiss. I’ll handle the rest.”

“Wife,” Neptune corrected stubbornly.

“Go give your wife a kiss, snuggle up to your wife, whatever. Geez, is this the best you can come up with? And you want to go for a ruin crawl like this? Go. Rest. Fuck off to be domestic and smiley, I’ve asked enough of you today.”

“You’re barely standing yourself,” Neptune pointed out, if only for the sake of argument.

“I’ll have a post-recon nap with Mars and then I’ll have victory sex with Mars, don’t you worry about me. Oh, and maybe don’t jump your wife’s bones before she mends that skull fracture.” With that, Venus turned away, and trotted down the stairs to rejoin her group.

Neptune lowered her head. Sacrifices paid in exhaustion, heartbreak, disappointment and blood—and yet, none stung like those paid with her pride.

She laid down beside Haruka, both of them out of uniform now, causing her wife to crack her eyes open.

“Is it over?”

“Yes, love,” Michiru leaned down to kiss Haruka. “It’s over.”

That earned her a sigh of relief as they snuggled together.

It was only over for them because it was never going to be over for someone else. If Michiru was endlessly contesting with Neptune for control over her life, then Minako had long since placed hers on an altar to Venus and lit the sacrificial flame.


	4. Alphabetic Prompt Meme roundup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sometimes I run a prompt writing meme on my Tumblr. This is the result of the first one, that I've (pretty much) completed and closed. Sometimes they fit into the grand scheme I have sketched out for the overall take on canon; sometimes, they don't. Backdating to the publish date of the first post.

_**Rei/Minako: an absent look or touch**_ **(note: AU ficlet)**

It was not a scene Rei had never seen before. It was not an experience Rei had never been through before. She knew how it would go this time, too. And she knew that all she could do to help was getting takeout hot chocolate. She wasn’t even angry anymore. She was just tired, and worried, and desperate for something to change.

Minako looked up for a moment when Rei placed the cup next to her elbow. “Thanks. How’s Usagi-chan?”

“She nodded off a while ago.”

“Well go back to her side. You know she always has nightmares when things look like this.”

Rei didn’t move. “Mina...”

Minako looked up again. She was paler than normal, and there were dark rings under her eyes; the bandages around her left hand and forearm were tied in a haphazard way that clearly indicated the knot had been tied with one hand and teeth. Yet even when Minako was exhausted and powered solely by stress and caffeine, there was something captivating about her, something that made it hard to look away.

“I can’t stop now,” Minako said quietly. Her tone left no room for discussion. “I have to get the others back before I wind down. I’m sorry, but not yet.”

With a sigh, Rei leaned closer. They had kissed thousands of times now, in thousands of different ways. Rei didn’t need a sixth sense to know that this time, Minako’s heart wasn’t in it.

Venus had always been so much more than a uniform.

“Please wake me up in three hours so I can take over for you,” Rei said when they parted.

She was rewarded with a nod. “Sure.”

With a sinking feeling disturbingly like defeat, Rei walked back to the corner Usagi had squeezed herself into. At least helping Usagi was easier. Hugs always worked.

Minako was the goddess of love, and would not rest before all of her girls were safely home.

 

~*~

 

_**Michiru and Minako: under cover of darkness** _

The sound of waves was always with Michiru now, a low whisper on the edge of hearing, a presence both reassuring and weighing her down at times. When the sea sang her to sleep, she dreamt visions. When the sea roared in her heart, she followed the sound into a fight.

Which was how she found herself taking a walk at this ungodly hour.

Michiru closed her eyes for a moment to concentrate, then chose a narrow space between two buildings. It was a tight fit, but it offered shelter from the dim glow of the street lamps, and it was out of sight—which provided a safe spot to transform, attack, and withdraw. The storm in her ears picked up; the monster was close.

Before she could draw a breath to murmur the phrase that triggered her transformation, there came a loud thud, followed by a distorted groan that was half surprise, half pain. Carefully, Michiru inched closer, one hand on her henshin pen.

“Hyah!” Another thud, another roar. “Crescent Beam!”

A flash of light, blinding in the dimly-lit alleyway. Michiru blinked the afterimage from her eyes to see a blonde girl in a sailor fuku, quite unlike that of Neptune, a bow in her hair and a mask over her eyes.

Sailor V chuckled, pointing her hands in fingerguns at the already disappearing pile of dust that used to be the youma. “Tell that to the cleaning lady on Monday.”

Michiru cringed, and withdrew unseen even as the other Senshi rapidly ascended the fire escape stairs of a nearby building.

She had always known that she was not the only Senshi, but now she had tangible proof. She had also known that V was not meant to cross paths with her… yet she still was curious. And so, on that night, Michiru fell asleep diving into the memory of Neptune again. She broke awake as terrified as when her dream self slaughtered monsters with nonchalant grace.

The image of V from her dream was not the one from the newspapers.

The V from Michiru’s dream was a shape divided in two with a deep shadow. The bright half of her face was confident, her smirk flirtatious, her frame relaxed and free, the echo of tinkling laughter and a hint of pride surrounding her like a halo. The dark half was frozen in a desire to spread the suffering of those she held dear to everything that caused it, lips curled into a grimace of pain, frame wound tight and coiled to strike, the faint clamour of chains in her wake and the icy glint of a sword in her hand.

The love shining to nurture others and the love smouldering to avenge others, blending together seamlessly to form a person wielding both. V was not this person yet, in much the same way Michiru wasn’t quite yet the fearless, awe-inspiring warlock with the sea at her back and the sight to unravel all falsehood.

That was the first time it occurred to Michiru that perhaps not all other Senshi were clairvoyant. And that in this sense, perhaps she truly was alone.

 

~*~

 

**_Chibiusa: a deafening sound_ **

Black lightning splitting the sky was never a good sign.

A deafening sound, much like a thunder’s roar, and the heiress to the throne of Crystal Tokyo found herself gritting her teeth. _It’s just a silly phobia_ , she told herself firmly, forcing her racing heart to calm. _You can get over it._

Saturn placed a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Thanks.”

Saturn gave her a nod. A moment later, both older Senshi looked up as Juno leapt down onto the ledge they were perched upon.

“Sup.”

“Hey.” Chibi Moon looked around. “The others aren’t with you?”

“Nope. We weren’t hanging out when Diana called,” Juno replied.

Chibi Moon stared at her until the Senshi in green squirmed. “Did you have a fight with VesVes again?”

“…Maybe?”

“Yes she did,” Vesta supplied, leaping down onto the ledge, crouching next to Saturn. “We already straightened that out, though. Coffee?”

Chibi Moon sighed. “Diana calls you guys on the communicators, which are reserved for Senshi emergencies, and you found the time to stop at Starbucks along the way?”

“PallaPalla and CereCere aren’t here yet,” Vesta deadpanned immediately.

“And what if they were? We’d be waiting for you with everything.”

“It’s PallaPalla and CereCere,” Vesta reminded. “You can’t put their names in the same sentence as the phrase ‘being on time’.”

Juno chuckled. “She’s not wrong.”

She wasn’t, but Chibi Moon would not be the one to say that.

Saturn snickered and took the coffee cup. “Your faith in your fellow Senshi is inspiring.”

“It’s not like they give us all the reason to believe in them being on time…”

“I didn’t mean that as chiding.” Saturn passed the coffee along. “It’s quite refreshing, really.”

 _Compared to Uranus and Neptune, it really is,_ Chibi Moon agreed silently, sipping the coffee before passing it to Juno. Though if this sort of behaviour kept up, she’d need a much stiffer drink. And soon.

“We’re here!” Ceres’ voice called from up above them. “What’s the—oh dear. Well, we can’t leave the Shin Setagaya landmark like this.”

“PallaPalla liked that statue…”

“Yeah, well, I doubt it likes anyone right now,” Juno grumped, and passed the coffee to the two up above.

“I’m just glad the sculptor didn’t give her a katana. Damage to the surrounding buildings would be horrifying,” Saturn said calmly. “Luckily, it’s a rapier. Watch out for thrusts, the point of this blade can move extremely fast.”

Ceres gave a small hum. “Right, didn’t you grow up with her?”

“In a way, yes.”

Vesta suspiciously eyed the statue of the first General of Crystal Tokyo and the greatest swordmaster in the world, reanimated with tainted energy and pacing to and fro across the square it used to stand on. “This is the fifth one this year. The hell is going on?”

Saturn and Chibi Moon exchanged a glance. Neither was going to tell the Quartet about the times when several life-threatening monster attacks per week were a staple, and they lacked the sensor network Mercury and Venus had left them to realize there was a new enemy before they were under attack.

“Let’s take the statue down, then check the Crystal Point network. It’s our best bet at locating the person behind this all,” Chibi Moon said. “Saturn and Vesta, get on that ledge southeast of here. Ceres, kite the statue so those two can drop down on it from above. Myself, Pallas, and Juno will hit it hard while it’s distracted. Understood?”

A chorus of confirmations.

“Let’s go.”

 

~*~

 

**_Setsuna: the colour green_ **

Looking at it from perspective, the dawning horror on Haruka’s face and the sound of Michiru screaming her name were the last things she remembered before the helicopter became a cloud of shrapnel and fire. The next moment, Pluto found herself thrown back-first into a cloud of dense mists, subdued greens swirling around her until there was nothing else in sight.

She died, then.

Resting the Garnet Rod across her legs, Pluto sat up in the lotus position to focus. Neptune and Uranus were still alive, and they were still fighting. And they were losing.

Fortunately, with herself out of the picture, the resonance of the Talismans would not awaken Saturn. Pluto drew a breath and spoke a single word, her voice carrying across space and time. Distantly, very distantly, she could feel the Space Sword and the Deep Aqua Mirror heed that call and take physical form to protect their bearers.

Pluto then rose, leaning on her staff, and set the jewel cresting it alight. By the time she found her way out of the mists, that battle would long be over. The best she could do right now was to start walking.

The realm of the dead had one exit, and it led to Charon Castle. There was one person capable of freely passing through that door, and it was the Senshi born under Pluto.

Giving the duty of the guardian of time to one blessed by the planet that ruled the underworld was, after all, only logical. When it came to protecting everything all other Senshi toiled for and fought for and died for from being written out of existence, one would want to place that responsibility on the person who never stayed dead for long. It was not that Pluto couldn’t die. It was that death merely sent her home.

If asked about the Queen, she could recite a lot of her virtues. Wise. Powerful. Commanding. Unyielding.

Pluto would never call the Queen kind.

 

~*~

 

**_Usagi: a flash of anger_ **

“Please tell me you understood any of this,” Usagi said hopefully, exiting the classroom for the lunch break.

Naru shook her head. “I thought I did, then I checked my results with the answers in the back of the textbook. They don’t match.”

Usagi’s worried expression swiftly gave way to the excitement after a sudden epiphany. “We can both ask Ami-chan to explain it!”

“I think our class is a few topics ahead of hers...”

“That won’t matter, she’ll know what it’s about. Ooh! There she is!” Usagi waved to her friend, who was exiting another classroom. Noticing her, Ami smiled and waved back. The next second, her eyes flicked to something behind Usagi, and the smile froze on her face. Immediately recognizing that expression, Usagi spun on her heel, one hand rising to the brooch in the middle of her chest ribbon.

She was not relieved when instead of a monster, she saw Makoto with her arms crossed over her chest, glowering at three classmates of hers—who had to look significantly up to meet her eyes. Whatever they were arguing about, apparently it was serious enough for one of the boys to shove her shoulder. His only warning was that Makoto’s eyes narrowed. The next second, she was in motion.

“Stop!” Usagi barked, her voice sharper and more commanding that anything all but two of the students gathered around have ever heard.

It was enough for the three boys to look at her, startled. It was enough to freeze Makoto in place, one fist raised to strike, eyes suddenly unfocused. What her classmates had heard was an unusually pissed off underachiever—what she had heard was an order from her sovereign.

Usagi then grabbed Makoto’s lowered wrist and pulled her away. “We’re talking a walk.”

Makoto blinked, but had no time to protest before being forced to stumble along. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Ami stepped between the two of them and the rest of Class 6, a warning glare silencing any taunts before they were even uttered. Those who met Ami’s eyes could have sworn that it suddenly got colder in the corridor.

“What did you do that for?” Makoto demanded angrily when the three of them were alone. “I could’ve taken them!”

“Yes, you could have,” Usagi sniped back. “And you would injure at least one in the process.”

Makoto bristled at that. “If they can’t handle that, they shouldn’t be picking a fight!”

Usagi whirled around to face her. “You’ve been attending the same school for almost a year now. When was the last time that happened? Do you know how far away from here another middle school is? You’d have to move again. You have so many plants at your place, you’ve even started hoarding pillows. Would you just get rid of half of it all and pack up the rest?”

“If I had to,” Makoto shot back.

“Except you don’t have to!” Usagi snapped, heedless of the way Makoto flinched back at her tone. “Nobody said it’s your fate or something to get kicked out of every school you attend! You’ve built so much for yourself, all on your own, and I’m not watching you throw it all out the window! Starting today, you’re keeping a better hold on your temper, and you’re going to graduate this school, hear me?!”

“Okay,” Makoto said in a very tiny voice.

Ami glanced between the two. For once, it was Usagi who looked ready to fight, and Makoto who looked ready to cry.

It took a few seconds before Usagi looked down, her shoulders drooping as she took a deeper breath. “I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

“No, it’s okay... it’s not like you were wrong,” Makoto managed a shaky smile.

Usagi extended both arms. “Hug and make up?”

“Definitely.”

 

~*~

 

**_Michiru: tears_**

Kaioh Michiru was no stranger to pain. The ache in her hands for hours, sometimes days, after a particularly intense practice session. The crawling, mounting pressure that made it impossible to think of anything else when she couldn’t get the images out her head and onto the canvas. The sharp burn of shredded skin and torn muscle and broken bone, pulsing to every beat of her heart, when she made a mistake during a fight. The bitter, suffocating shame every time the world threw more proofs in her face that she had manipulated Haruka into a lifetime of bloodshed and struggles and battles, that she had failed to give Hotaru a real chance for a normal childhood, that she was not accepting and warm enough towards Setsuna. The paralyzing apathy, like a piece of her heart had crumbled off and left a hollow space, as she grew used to any and all of these.

Kaioh Michiru held her head high and kept an expression of mild interest on her face, staring her pain in the eye.

What she could not stand was watching the pain of those girls.

Usagi had folded into herself, knees close to her chest and head bowed low. To see her so still, so apathetic, was heartbreaking in its own respect—never mind the maddened howl of Neptune in the back of Michiru’s head. A Senshi’s soul was wired with caring about the Princess since before they were even born, and a Senshi was physically incapable of remaining idle when the Princess was suffering. At times, Michiru hated her Princess for that. But she would always inevitably remember that her Princess was Usagi, the one person who would believe in virtually anyone, the one person whose belief very seldom failed to bring out the best in people. The one person even Michiru, who played others like she played her violin, could never bring herself to steer into disadvantageous circumstances. Despite herself, Michiru had actually grown fond of this girl. But she could never admit it without remembering the blind devotion a Senshi felt towards the Princess, and wondering how much of her acceptance was truly her own.

To say that Michiru had a complicated love-hate relationship with her duty would be a monumental understatement.

Rei was kneeling beside Usagi, arms wrapped around the blonde’s shoulders and cheek rested against her back. Michiru could still see the hollow expression on Rei’s face, those beautiful eyes locked in a thousand yard stare. Evidently, even the Senshi of Fire could burn out.

Makoto was flat on her back, Setsuna’s rolled up coat under her head, skin covered in a thin sheen of cold sweat and teeth gritted so hard, Michiru could quite clearly see the muscles of her jaw working. She had taken a blow meant for one of her friends, as she was so fond of doing; the healing rate of a Senshi meant she would be on her feet again soon—sooner than any doctor would permit it, no doubt—but for now, all she could do was wait and suffer in silence.

Holding one of Makoto’s hands was Ami, sitting slumped against the wall, her head bowed, but eyes half-open; judging by the data slowly scrolling through her visor, she was still looking for solutions. Her unchangingly vacant expression was confirmation enough that there were none. Or rather, none she found acceptable.

The ruthless glint to Minako’s eyes said that her expectations were significantly lower. A fist under her chin as she stared through a window, the fingers of her other hand absent-mindedly tapping a monotonous rhythm against the flat of the Holy Sword’s blade, Minako was clearly not looking for a solution. She was waiting to execute one she had already decided on.

Hotaru was sitting cross-legged on the floor, her back ramrod straight, eyes closed, and breath as peaceful as if she were asleep. Out of them all, she was the calmest and the most collected, and certainly the only one perfectly capable of meditating in the midst of the hellscape Tokyo had recently become. Every time Michiru had caught her looking at the destruction all around, there was a hint of wonder on Hotaru’s face. She knew as well as any of them that it was the fruit of their decades-spanning work and devotion crumbling all around them, and yet she could not help but find some measure of beauty in it.

Nearly mirroring Hotaru’s position, but with her staff rested across her thighs and her hands lightly laced over it, Setsuna stared at the wall straight ahead of her. To someone who didn’t live with her in the same house for so long, she would appear just as calm and unreadable as ever. Michiru, however, had seen her cautious and content, decisive and conceding, steadfast and exhausted, encouraging and vulnerable. Right now, none of these was permitted to occur. Setsuna was retreating into the emotional safety of Pluto, backing away from all ties other than those of oath and duty.

Michiru rose from the floor and headed towards the staircase, climbed up onto the roof, where Haruka was keeping watch. Her jaw set and her eyes grim, never looking away from the devastation before her, it was not hard to deduce what was on Haruka’s mind: failure. In her mind, if she had been stronger, smarter, faster, none of this would have happened—but she had been negligent, she had allowed it to come to pass, and so she would survey the ruins and commit every detail to memory, as a way of punishing herself.

That the supposed negligence was merely being human mattered little.

She did turn her head at the sound of footsteps, however. Forcing away the sudden tightness to her throat, Michiru knelt by her side and pulled Haruka into a kiss. _Look away_ , she begged silently. _Just for a moment, don’t look, don’t torment yourself._

She could feel Haruka melt under her lips, as always. She also knew that Haruka was not quite out of her reverie; she could feel it in the way Haruka clung to her, then cradled her cheek.

“How are you holding up?”

“Evidently better than you are,” Michiru ran a hand through Haruka’s hair. She was still in control of her voice, thanks to a lifetime of practice. That practice, however, was also what made her aware that she would not be able to maintain her poise for long. “Go try to rest, love. I’ll take over for you.”

Unfortunately, Haruka had seen her lie enough times to call her out on bluffing sometimes.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.” Michiru focused on how much she loved this girl, and managed a quite genuine smile. “Run along now.”

Although taxing, it was effective. Haruka gave her a small nod and one last fleeting caress before turning away to go downstairs. Michiru listened out for her footsteps a while longer, making sure Haruka wouldn’t double-back; only then she folded into herself, a hand covering her face as her shoulders quivered with silent sobs.

There was only so much of their suffering Michiru was willing to watch.

Three of them had ever seen tears in her eyes. Michiru prided herself on the fact that none of them had ever seen those tears fall.

 

~*~

 

**_Makoto and Rei: an abandoned or empty place_ **

The first time they went together was, to tell the truth, a happy accident—Makoto had spotted Rei in a café, hands laced over a cup of tea and grim fury surrounding her like plumes of roiling smoke. A short exchange of words was enough to make them both realize that they had both excused themselves from spending time with the others for the exact same reason.

“But why are you sitting here?” Makoto asked then. “I mean, you can see the gate from here.”

“I’m waiting for my father to leave before I visit,” Rei replied with the calmness that would easily fit a plain scorched with a vicious wildfire that had long since died.

“You could be waiting a while, you know.”

“He’s a busy man. I give it two hours, maybe less, before he has to go.”

Makoto didn’t ask how long Rei had already spent waiting—only nodded, and ordered herself a cup of tea as well. And gave a small shrug at Rei’s inquiring glance.

“I’ll keep you company. Took the day off, anyway, might as well do something useful with it.”

Rei frowned a little at that. “Aren’t you going to tell me that a day like this gives me the perfect chance to make up with my father?”

“I have literally never seen you waiting when a perfect chance to do something worth your time and effort presented itself. If you wanted to make up with your father, you would’ve done so already,” Makoto said evenly, stirring her tea. “And a day like this is hard enough without having to talk to him, I’m sure.”

She had half-expected Rei’s usual bluster, a claim it wasn’t that hard, a small outburst of anger to cover up any other emotion. But she wasn’t exactly surprised when Rei simply lowered her head a little.

“Yeah.”

They waited, mostly in silence, for barely over an hour. Then Rei lifted her head and nodded towards an expensive-looking car with darkened windows, driving away down the street. “That was him.”

“Let’s go, then.”

“You don’t have to come with me, you know.”

Makoto gave her a long look. Talking to Rei wasn’t as easy as talking to anyone else from their circle. And with Rei acting a little strange—which was understandable, given the occasion—it was only getting harder. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No.” Rei averted her eyes for a moment. “I know you understand. I just don’t want to keep you.”

“Then I’ll tag along, because you’re not keeping me.”

Rei gave a small nod. “Thanks.”

Both back then and every time after, they always entered the cemeteries side by side—and there was rarely anyone else in sight. Year after year, they agreed on a day and spent its majority on public transport, crossing several city wards to visit two graves together. Rei left a small, meticulously prepared offering on the one marked with a multitude of names carved into the stone and a few painted in red—her own and her grandfather’s included. Makoto burnt incense at the one that was only visited once per year, if its state was any indication.

“You’ve never mentioned you’re a Buddhist,” Rei said carefully on her first time visiting the Kino family grave.

“I’m not. My mother was. Father, I don’t think he cared much for these things.” Makoto paused for a bit before looking up at Rei, sudden uncertainty rippling through her. “Can you give me a moment?”

Rei tilted her head a little, concerned at the shift in her friend’s emotions. “Are you okay?”

“I need to speak some things aloud… need to hear them spoken, really. But I feel like an idiot if anyone hears me talking to a grave.”

Rei reached out to gently squeeze Makoto’s shoulder. “I’ll make sure no one disturbs you.”

Makoto smiled at her, and Rei walked off until she was out of earshot.

It had taken a moment, as it always did, and Makoto always had to brace herself before leaving—but in the end, she would square her shoulders, rise, and rejoin Rei ready to leave.

Over the years, they would take turns—one year it was the Hino grave first and the Kino grave second, the next it was the other way around—in an agreement to keep it fair and square. Neither cared about fair and square when Makoto prepared packed lunch for both of them, or when Rei hunted for the best incense in all of Minato. Out of the five of them, Makoto and Rei’s friendship was probably the one that was the most strained and the least intuitive; their languages were the most conflicting, they had to work for mutual understanding the hardest, and make the most compromises with each other. But neither of them was prone to giving up, and if they had a single thing to bond over, they would.

In time, it turned out that they had multiple things to bond over. Dead parents among them.

“Mako-chan?” Rei had prompted once, when they stood over the Hino family grave; she had finished cleaning around it, left an offering and a prayer, and yet she still stood there.

“Yeah?”

“I can’t remember my mother,” Rei said quietly. “I mean… I’ve seen photos, but I don’t feel anything when I look at them.”

“You were very little, weren’t you?” Makoto asked carefully. “It’s normal to forget.”

“No, you don’t understand. Part of how my sixth sense works… I get a feel of a person. The more I know someone, the better I can sense them, that’s how I always know when you guys are nearby and sometimes the state you’re in even if we’re apart. It’s a sound, or a scent, or an image, or a feeling, but it’s so inexplicably _this person_ , I could recognize it deaf and blind and at the end of the world. I can describe everyone dearest to me in that way—except for my mother. I look at the pictures and I have nothing to match her face. Just… nothing. A flat image in sepia is all there is. Like the photos are all I’ve ever had of her.”

“Rei-chan…” Makoto put an arm around Rei’s shoulders at the sight of tears in her eyes. “This isn’t your failing.”

“Isn’t it? I should have something. I should have anything!” Rei bowed her head, covering her face with one hand. “It’s like I never loved her at all.”

Makoto closed her eyes for a moment. The others would know what to do, or what to say—she was drawing a blank. But Rei always went to visit this place with her, not with any of the others, so it likely meant that Rei didn’t want to hear something the others would say. Makoto took a deep breath, and asked the question that always helped her through similar doubts.

“You did love her though, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did!” Rei growled through gritted teeth.

“And you remember loving her,” Makoto pointed out. “Then you do have something.”

“That’s—” Rei’s voice broke. “That isn’t enough.”

“Is it better than nothing?”

A shaky nod and tears were all the answer Makoto received, and all she needed to pull Rei into a tight hug.

“I know this is probably not something you get,” Rei broke the silence eventually. “But it means a lot that you’re here with me regardless.”

“My dad used to sing,” Makoto said quietly, sounding a little strained, as if every word spoken on the matter caused her physical pain. “Most days, I can’t remember the sound of his voice. But sometimes, there’s an old song on the radio and I just…“

She felt Rei pulling her closer until they were holding on to each other so tightly, the embrace was almost crushing. For the longest time, neither seemed to mind.

“There’s a small park nearby,” Rei said finally. “Will you sit with me for a minute?”

Makoto nodded, releasing the shrine maiden from her arms. “Lead the way.”

The park was indeed quite tiny, and about as deserted as the graveyard. Rei picked out a spot and knelt on the sun-warmed grass, sitting on her heels, back straight and eyes closed. Makoto weighed her options for a moment before deciding that it’s been too long since she tried to meditate; might as well give it a shot if she was going to wait anyway.

She sat down cross-legged, back to back with Rei, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes on the exhale. The clear-minded focus came easier than it usually did; whether it was her surroundings or the company of a friend, Makoto wasn’t quite sure. The sounds of nearby traffic weren’t jarring her out, for once, nor was the knowledge that she was in public. During the immeasurable amount of time the five of them had spent together, Makoto had noticed that Rei always felt warm—warmer than any of the others, and was the only one who would dig herself from under the covers on every single sleepover—and now, with their backs almost touching, Makoto could feel Rei’s presence like she would be able to point towards the Sun with her eyes closed.

She couldn’t boast a sixth sense, but the five were entirely enough.

Rei, in turn, felt the moment Makoto had joined her as a perceptible shift in her surroundings—as if suddenly, she was leaning against an ancient, smooth-barked tree, sheltered in its shade. Makoto’s mere presence brought a sense of stability, of being protected, as it so often did; with this pillar of strength and security at her back, whether it was during battle or in everyday life, Rei immediately felt some of the ever-present tension dissolve. With Makoto by her side, it seemed like there was nothing they couldn’t face if they worked together. They were the two with the most differences between them, true—but in a way, it only meant that Makoto was the dragon to Rei’s firebird, and the opposites they embodied could be brought together to become the ultimate expression of grace and power.

It was not a common occurrence for Rei to allow help in without stooping down to asking for it first. But maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing to rely on someone else a little, from time to time.


	5. In Dreams, She's Always Bleeding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Giveaway entry, published in a submission to Holligay's blog.

In dreams, she’s always bleeding.

She looks to her hands, and finds them soaked in dark red as if they’ve been flayed, blood trickling onto her forearms and dripping to the ground. She will take three lives with these hands, she has to, regardless of what that will make her.

Three sacred treasures sealed within the purest of hearts, three people she will murder. Three tiny suns in the otherwise dark sky, even as the end of the world plays out before her eyes again. She reaches to them with one mangled hand, and immediately falls to her knees as a spike of excruciating pain lances through her. She rips her shirt open, and finds a deep wound in her chest, right where she always does, pale red foaming and bubbling around the edges. And yet, there is less blood than she feels there should be—probably due to the golden hilt stuck inside the wound. She grips the pommel and one of the curved quillons, and second after agonizing second, she pulls the Space Sword out. Finally, the blood starts sizzling against the blade of coalesced light, the stench of burned flesh nauseatingly familiar, and she pulls until the sword is in her bloodied hand—where it belongs. It is a part of her body, and feels like an extension of her arm. It is a part of her soul, and she can hear it whispering its readiness like she can hear the winds. Yet it is still a weapon, and its sole purpose is to kill, kill, kill.

She looks up and finds herself facing a frail girl in purple and black. A twelve-years-old child stares at her with the eyes of Saturn. An unawakened Senshi, scared and alone, unable to understand why strange things keep happening around her, why she keeps feeling out of place, longing for something she can’t name.

“It’s not the same,” her dream self says, even as blood starts trickling from the corners of her lips. “We have nothing in common.”

With every lie, more blood wells up in her mouth, pours down her chin, drips onto her clothes. She’s in uniform now, gloves and fuku soaked through with different shades of red.

“It’s the enemy’s fault for using a human shield. I was ready to kill three people, and I’m grateful that in the end I will only have to kill one. No matter how heavy the sacrifices are, I will protect this planet. And I will have no regrets.”

Saturn stares her down from the face of a twelve-years-old child as she raises the Space Sword.

“I have to do this,” she can hear her own voice becoming increasingly desperate. “I can’t risk the whole world for one person.”

She’s drenched in blood. It coats her skin, stains her uniform, sticks her hair into short, spiky locks. And yet, she’s lifting her Talisman to shed even more.

Saturn’s eyes flick to the glowing blade, then meet her own. The Space Sword whispers its thirst.

The girl is ready. The weapon is ready.

She’s never going to be ready, but she swings the blade down.

Haruka startles awake, nearly panicking before she remembers where she is. Her hands aren’t wet, her chest doesn’t hurt, and she’s not choking.

A dream.

The same dream. Again. Haruka lets herself pant for a moment, trying to still her breathing, trails her fingers through her hair. She hadn’t killed Saturn. She hadn’t killed anyone. There is no blood on her hands. So far.

A small mewl by her side more than suffices to break her out of her reverie. Michiru is curled up, tangling the sheets tightly around herself, hands fisted in the fabric. Haruka leans over her immediately and trails the back of her hand over Michiru’s cheek, only to find her jaw clenched. An attempt to gently shake her awake yields exactly as much success as it always does—zero.

“Michiru,” Haruka says softly. “It’s okay. Come on, wake up. Michiru.”

It doesn’t work. It never does. Haruka keeps trying anyway. Maybe someday she’ll get through.

There are Good Nights, when Michiru manages whole hours of uninterrupted sleep. There are Normal Nights, when Michiru gets some rest before having a vision, or when the vision isn’t intense enough to prevent her from resting. There are Bad Nights, when Michiru thrashes in the hold of nightmares until she manages to break awake, and then it takes her a long time to fall asleep again. Assuming she doesn’t just leave the bed without even trying.

Good Nights are rare. And this one looks like a Very Bad Night.

As a shiver runs through her, Michiru pulls her knees closer to her chest. A shaky intake of breath, and she starts to mumble a torrent of words too soft and too fast for Haruka to understand—she can’t be sure whether Michiru is even speaking Japanese. She just keeps stroking Michiru’s hair, rubbing her shoulders, whispering reassurances. Finally, she hears Michiru’s breath catch.

“Haruka?”

“I’m here,” she repeats again, as softly as ever. “It’s okay.”

Michiru breathes out a sigh of relief and closes one hand on the edge of Haruka’s pyjamas. The hold isn’t frantically tight anymore, even though she still appears a little dazed. “Haruka.”

“Come here.”

They fold into each other’s arms, like they had so many times before; Michiru hiding her face in Haruka’s chest, Haruka stroking Michiru’s hair. One waiting for the edges of the vision to dissolve, the other giving all the time and comfort needed.

“Did I wake you again?” Michiru asks finally, her tone tired. She doesn’t even try to conceal that. In this room, she doesn’t have to hide anything.

“No, I actually woke up a little while before I realized you were dreaming.” Haruka feels Michiru’s small nod against her chest. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. No. I want to forget about it,” Michiru brings a hand to her face for a moment. “As soon as humanly possible.”

Haruka strokes her cheek once more. “Anything you need.”

On Bad Nights, Michiru sometimes did need to talk. Sometimes she needed to cry. Sometimes she needed to play a disturbing piece, or to paint something even more disturbing. They’ve been through all those variations already, and Haruka waits to see what it will be.

Michiru pulls back a little, but only to shift higher, and gives Haruka a fervent, open-mouthed kiss.

Or, yes, sometimes she needed to lose herself in the feel and taste of Haruka, to banish any horror she might have seen with a passionate proof of being alive and together. And, quite possibly, feel at least a little in control of something.

Haruka obediently rolls onto her back, and pulls Michiru into another kiss. They’ve been through that, too, and experience tells her that she is not going to complain.


	6. Here Have Some Reinako

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Written for a friend at some point. Publish date lost. Just might be the sappiest and fluffiest while also painful thing I’ve ever churned out.

_Mercury sways on her feet, one hand at her throat, a torrent of bright blood pouring down onto her uniform. The blue visor appears over her eyes and the jewels on her uniform start to glow, as she proceeds to release as much as possible of her soul’s energy before her body fails._

_Jupiter sinks a little, knees giving way under her as she coughs and wheezes, one hand clamped over her mouth, frantically struggling for breath. When she’s finally able to straighten her back again, panting slightly and still shaking, the palm of her glove is painted with red specks. Jupiter grits her teeth as she stares down at her hand. There is no surprise in her expression, no fear, only desperation._

_Venus’ beautiful face pulls into a grimace of focus as she keeps one arm around Serenity’s shoulders, pulling her along; her free hand is closed into a fist, raised above her head, as she directs the coils of energy chains swirling around them, both a shield and a weapon. There’s eight of them, or maybe twelve—they rotate too fast to be sure. One chain snakes out to throw a youma into a stone pillar, with enough force to break both. Another chain shifts to block incoming projectiles. The two Senshi move in perfect tandem, but it’s not enough. Not anymore._

_“This won’t work,” she growls. “Get her to safety.”_

_Venus looks her at her, and for a moment, those bright blue eyes hold only hatred. Then she lifts her hand from the Princess’ shoulder and points to where they came from._

_“That courtyard will make a decent chokepoint.”_

_“I will make them fear coming after you,” she swears._

_Venus gives her a nod, and they part ways._

_“Wait—” Serenity says shakily. “Mars!”_

_She turns over her shoulder just in time to see Venus catch the Princess around the waist with her free arm to pull her away._

_“We’re going.”_

_“No! We can’t just leave her to—!”_

_“We’re going!” Venus roars at her sovereign, dragging her forward._

_“Mars!” Serenity shrieks again. “Come back! Mars!”_

_She walks away, and very slowly, the cries fade. The Princess does a great job of broadcasting their position to the enemy. Human soldiers reeking of tainted energy and youma made of that energy coalesced into physical form, claws and fangs and swords and spears forming into a solid wall of death slowly moving closer to the Senshi._

_“Look how you have hurt her,” she says with calmness she does not feel._

_The cobblestones start to boil beneath her feet._

_“You made ME hurt her.”_

_A curtain of fire bursts to life as she spreads her arms. The youma flinch away, muzzles now twisted with dread as well as hatred._

_Fear is an easy emotion to latch onto. She screams her rage, and the flames roar forth._

Rei bolted upright in her bed, a choked-off cry on her lips. It took her moments to recognize the room. It took her even less to curl up, knees close to her chest, one hand over her eyes. Beside her, Minako pushed herself up as well, still sleepy but undeniably alert.

“The lights are on, but is anyone home, Zippo?”

“Yes, I can hear you,” Rei grumped.

“Nightmare?”

“Yes.”

“Past or future?” Minako asked simply.

“Past.”

She heard Minako sigh—part relief, part sympathy, she knew—but when she felt a hand on her shoulder, Rei reflexively swatted it away before she even had the chance to think. The mattress then shifted when Minako got out of bed. Rei gritted her teeth, tears starting to sting her eyes, and laid down again with her back to the room. She shouldn’t have done that, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to try talking right now. Not with her throat so tight.

But Minako seemed to just wander around the room, making small thoughtful noises as if looking for something, quite possibly to make sure that Rei knew she wasn’t leaving. Then a single quiet 'ah' and an accompanying tinge of satisfaction in her emotions. Minako padded back to the bed, sat on the floor next to it. Next came a few testing plinks.

Rei felt her shoulders droop. _Oh spirits._ She was tuning the ukulele she won at a festival once.

But then she almost looked over her shoulder. Minako wasn’t tuning just the instrument—her aura swirled and shifted into radiating quiet, warm serenity. Minako’s handle on her own emotions was what made her such an amazing actress and liar; on a superficial level, she was able to make herself feel whatever she wanted to, which did wonders for non-verbal signals that she wanted to send.

Sometimes it was scary. Sometimes, like now, it was very welcome.

The plinks stopped for a moment. Then, Minako started to play. And then, she started to sing.

“Black is the colour of my true love's hair, her face so soft and wondrous fair; the purest eyes and the gentlest hands, I love the ground whereon she stands...”

Rei closed her eyes again. Minako was playing and singing just loud enough to pull the notes flawlessly, but not loud enough for the sound of either to be obnoxious. Her voice carried the same measure of care and respect and willingness to help as the vibe she was giving off did. She remained ready to give, she was just changing her approach. So Rei took a deep breath and listened to her voice, and to the damned ukulele as well.

It was surprisingly calming. And not just because Minako was singing a ballad of proclaiming poetic love to a black-haired girl. It was a firm, yet still gentle anchor to the present. The nightmarish recollections of the last battles they fought in the Silver Millennium were slowly starting to dissolve.

Then Minako played another song, and Rei recognized the tune immediately: Niwa-no-Chigusa. Except that Minako was still singing in English, not Japanese. Rei focused, actually a little curious. And the lyrics took her as off-guard as a blow to the gut would.

“'Tis the last rose of summer, left blooming alone; all her lovely companions are faded and gone...”

Oh no.

All those thousands of years ago, Venus was still alive when Mars fell to the youma, wasn’t she?

And speaking of that, how did she know what was going on?

Rei kept listening, and as expected, the song hurt her on a deeply personal level. It still felt cathartic. Straight until the last verses.

“When true hearts lie withered and fond ones are flown, oh! who would inhabit this bleak world alone?”

Rei suddenly found herself questioning what happened after the Mars of the Silver Millennium fell. Meanwhile, Minako gave a thoughtful sniff, and played another song.

“All the birds in the forest, they bitterly weep, saying, 'Where will we shelter? Oh, where will we sleep?' For the oak and the ash, they are all cutten down, and the walls of bonny Portmore are all down to the ground...”

Okay. One song could have been a coincidence. Though not _that_ song, to be honest, not with Minako. Two would be deliberate even if it wasn’t Minako.

Thankfully, next came a longer pause.

Minako had to think for a moment. She went through Black Is The Colour, Last Rose of Summer, and Bonny Portmore already; Greensleeves wouldn’t be keeping in theme, and Rei would be distracted from the finer points of the ballad of Tam Lin with the overall theme and also heterosexuality. And she doubted that Whiskey In The Jar would make things any better.

Though she’d gladly break the Super Heartfelt & Sappy 9000 mood with a stupid drinking song, to be honest.

It was probably a good thing that Rei chose that moment to look over her shoulder.

“Mina.”

“Mm?”

“Come back to bed?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” Minako put the ukulele away and crawled under the covers, wasting no time in wrapping around Rei like one of those tiny plushies with small magnets sewn into their hands, feet, and bellies. And the strangest thing was, Rei didn’t protest. No annoyed 'tch', no momentarily gritted teeth.

Huh. Super Heartfelt & Sappy 9000 was the right choice after all.

“How did you know what I’ve been dreaming about?” Rei asked quietly.

Minako couldn’t help a small sigh. “You think you’re the only one who has this particular brand of nightmares?”

All of a sudden, Rei felt very, very stupid.

“You guys all have a tell for having dreamed about the Silver Millennium again,” Minako’s voice was matter-of-fact and slightly courteous, as if she was recounting a mildly interesting press article. Which was often the strongest signal that the subject was affecting her more deeply than she’d ever like to admit in front of anyone other than herself. “Mako-chan keeps clearing her throat and glancing at her hands straight after, and she hugs us far more often. Usagi-chan gets even feelsier than usual, she has to keep all of us in her sight and link arms with at least one person. They both pull closer, at least... Ami-chan just goes off to work with zero warning, it’s very hard to get her to smile and outright impossible to get her to stop, and she keeps going for a few consecutive days and nights, until she’s certain she’s too exhausted to dream about it again. Usually, you pull away, too. Except that you know how to handle past life and future vision shit way better, and it really shows in how fast you recover.”

“What about you?” Rei asked quietly.

“What about me, Zippo?”

“What’s your tell?”

Minako smiled. “Maybe I don’t have one.”

“Liar.”

“Good catch. I’m still going to make you work for it.”

Rei reached to lightly swat her on the head. “Don’t you always?”

“It’s always worth it.” She could swear she felt Rei roll her eyes at that. “Zippo?”

“What?”

“I love you so much,” Minako drawled.

Rei groaned. “Will you stop that?”

Minako gave a small laugh, even as Rei turned to face her and burrow into her arms more comfortably. Regardless of how they went to sleep, they’d probably wake up like usual—Minako curled up around a pillow like a baby sloth and Rei having kicked the covers halfway off of herself. If they went to sleep holding each other so tightly, they were doomed to waking up several times through the night to separate. Neither seemed to mind, really.

When sunlight came, it was not a welcome intrusion, and so it was promptly ignored. All that needed doing was throwing one arm over her eyes. It was not remotely as easy, however, to ignore the shifting of the familiar, warm weight at her side. Without aiming, Minako reached up to grab Rei and tugged. Judging from the small irritated huff, she had grabbed a fistful of pants and yanked them down. When the fabric was pried from her fingers, Minako gave the Unhappy Kitten Noise she had witnessed Artemis melting people’s hearts with time after time, and was promptly rewarded with a light kiss on the cheek before Rei padded out of the room.

Okay. Now that was unusual.

But it was not a bad kind of unusual, so Minako gave herself a good while more, marginally aware of Rei groaning at the toaster and huffing at the tea kettle. While Minako preferred to wake up by gradually letting her awareness reassemble itself, all the while remaining in bed—and she could even blame it all on Artemis, after all she _was_ the protégée of a cat—Rei usually opted for waking up by walking into doorframes and getting irritated at everything.

Every kitchen Kino Makoto walked into became Kino Makoto’s kitchen, but woe to anyone who interrupted Hino Rei in the morning. The room or the task mattered little.

All the more reason to lounge comfortably in bed. Until Minako got lonely or bored, anyway. And one of these inevitably came, which led to Minako aiding Rei’s efforts towards making breakfast. From a respectful distance. And doing something entirely separate from Rei’s endeavours.

Except that this time, there was a steaming mug of coffee on her part of the table already. And it was just warm enough to be ready to drink, too. Minako sniffed at it suspiciously. She thought she smelled a hint of cinnamon. She took a sip then. And actually stood like that for a good moment before swallowing.

Cinnamon, yes, but also a sprinkle of vanilla syrup, and quite possibly a hint of powdered cloves.

It was the best thing to have ever graced her mouth with its presence. Which was saying something.

Minako glanced to Rei, who was pointedly facing away from her. Then she smiled into her coffee, took another sip, and went over to help.


	7. Sunspot and Evening Star

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: @gay-la-v's tags on my shitpost about Minako:
> 
> #imagine how different SilMil would have been had Metallia targeted Minako instead of Beryl #IMAGINE #and then talk to me about it because that's actually the best idea I've ever had
> 
> So I thought about it, and then my hand slipped.  
> This is part one and two, which were originally posted within two days of each other. I have a third and final part planned, but I don't know when I might get down to it.

 

> I. Overview

The Queen is wise. The Queen is kind. The Queen is powerful.

No one questions the Queen’s wisdom, and yet the Moon’s relations with Earth continue to deteriorate. No one questions the Queen’s kindness, and yet the Four Senshi of the Guardian Planets are not permitted to grow attached to the one they are sworn to. No one questions the Queen’s power, and yet her daughter could use the Silver Crystal just as well.

The Queen is not the one who holds their hearts and loyalties, and yet the Queen is the one they obey.

Without a doubt, the Queen is shrewd, as she has made it so the four of them can only fulfil their oaths to the Princess by serving the Queen. Without a doubt, the Queen loves her child, but that love extends to little else. Without a doubt, Venus could not attack the Queen and emerge victorious.

At least not alone.

Venus never voices any of these treasonous thoughts; she swallows her pride and serves the Queen. Over time, she notices the defiance in the way Mars refuses to look down and Jupiter clenches her fists and Mercury grits her teeth. Venus hands Mars a cutlery knife instead of chopsticks and apologizes hastily, maintaining eye contact the whole time. Within days, the Princess is carrying a concealed tanto on her person at all times. Venus suggests the Princess would likely love to learn ice skating, and watches Jupiter’s eyes light up with more than joy. Within weeks, the Princess endures longer bouts of snowball fights the five of them have in the quiet of the night in an abandoned hall, thanks to the one with power over water. Venus asks Mercury about the Princess’ history classes, and the reply assures her that Mercury understood exactly what was being said and what wasn’t. Within months, the Princess starts asking questions.

The royal line of the Silver Millennium is long-lived, not immortal. Sooner or later, they will have a new Queen. If her mother will not make sure she is adequately prepared, her Senshi will.

But then, the Princess’ step loses its spring and her smile becomes a rare occurrence and she takes to sitting alone in the evening and late into the night, watching the sky. At the same time, the unrest on Earth escalates, further than any of them had ever seen.

Venus knows one lovestruck when she sees them. She watches the Princess carefully, and learns there is no one on the Moon the heiress seeks the company (or mere sight) of more often than she had always done. Venus easily seduces one of the soldiers serving directly under their Prince’s Shitennou to gain a source of information. There are murmurs of discontent, accusing Endymion of loving the night sky too fondly to look to his own people, even claiming that he should not be the Prince. There are whispers of a sorceress who has harnessed all power of the Sun and the shadows cast by its light, and who has vowed to liberate the Earth of the Silver Millennium’s influence.

One night, Venus enters the Princess’ chambers uninvited, and finds her stargazing again. Except that stars are not what young Serenity is looking at. With patience and love and understanding, Venus coaxes out a confession that the Princess had fallen for Endymion. She wipes her sovereign’s tears away and kisses her forehead and strokes her hair. Venus looks up at the planet in the sky, and holds Serenity close so she doesn’t have to see the steely glint in the Senshi’s eyes.

Once the Princess is consoled a little and soundly asleep, Venus proceeds to drag Mars out of bed and demands a divination. When she is given a name, a description, and a place, she offers her thanks and leaves.

The next sunrise on Earth is greeted by Venus bleeding the red-haired sorceress out over an altar to the youma-spawning abomination. A dark shadow appears, and a reverberating voice sounds:

**_IT IS FUTILE TO CHALLENGE ME, SENSHI._ **

“I don’t want to challenge you, I want you attention,” Venus replies dryly. “Your champion lies dead at my feet, which proves I’m stronger than she was. I’m also smarter than Beryl, and subtler than she would ever know it’s possible to be. If you want an upgrade, I’m standing right here.”

**_YOU WISH TO TAKE HER PLACE?_ **

“I need power, and you need a servant,” Venus tells the shifting shadow. “It’s a win-win.”

She rethinks her choice of words immediately as a torrent of tainted energy crashes into her, flooding and twisting and remaking her insides to its liking. When Venus can breathe again, she tests her new powers for a moment, then sits to concentrate and mask the dark energy with that of her guardian planet. And then she returns to the Moon.

The Queen doesn’t even notice. Of course she doesn’t. It’s been too long since she’s been able to see past her child.

Venus manages to steal another heart-to-heart talk with the Princess. The situation on Earth is putting Endymion in danger, and Serenity fears for his life. Venus offers a smile and words of encouragement, and follows the Princess the next time she goes to see him. When the lovers bid each other farewell, Venus follows the Prince, and drops the shadow veil she had taught herself to weave.

Endymion’s hand falls to the hilt of his sword immediately. “Show yourself!”

“I am showing myself. It’s not my fault you’re too moonstruck to see me,” Venus says testily. “I don’t much care for you, Prince, but she does, and I will see you two married if it’s the last thing I ever do. Kindly work with me, here.”

It does not take much more to convince the Prince to cooperate. He turns his mind back to his people and to the matters tearing his court into two opposing factions; slowly but steadily, the situation stabilizes a little. Serenity bemoans the fewer opportunities to see him, but with quiet yet firm support from her four Senshi, she preserves.

So far, Venus needed Metallia’s champion out of the way to eliminate a threat to her plan. Now she needs to actively use the tainted energy she’s been infused with, instead of merely grappling with it for control every day. But if she is to make it all work, she needs an ally, and the youma spawned with Metallia’s power are too unreliable.

Mars will sense something is wrong. Mercury will reach the same conclusion. The only one who will take her words at face value is Jupiter.

Venus takes a deep breath, trying not to think about what she’s going to do, and asks Jupiter for help with scouting out a suspicious crater in Mare Crisium. The taller Senshi agrees immediately, and they set out. Once there, Venus springs the previously prepared trap, making it seem like she’s in danger; Jupiter leaps to her aid without thinking, and is promptly thrown to her knees as an avalanche of Metallia’s energy pours over her. Against all odds, Jupiter manages to raise her head and extend one hand to Venus–who stands unmoving, watching, waiting. The pain on Jupiter’s face shifts into fear, shock, betrayal, and she lets out a single roar that is half agony, half defiance, before collapsing like a marionette with severed strings.

Venus works Metallia’s will to remake the strings, and when the echoes of Jupiter’s subsequent screams fade, she speaks a single word. “Rise.”

That prompts a moan from the broken form at her feet. Jupiter’s fingers scrabble at the dirt and she shakily pushes herself up, her movements jerky and uneven, as if she was fighting against every last one of them. When Venus can see her face again, it’s streaked with tears, and her eyes hold nothing but horror. Jupiter is now a prisoner in her own mind, watching her body moving and her powers at work without any input on her part.

“I’m sorry,” Venus says quietly. “But none of you would have agreed to do this with me, and I can’t do it alone. Please go ahead and hate me after it’s over.”

She is sorry, to be sure. But not sorry enough not to do it anyway.

The two of them leave the Moon and focus on crafting youma with Metallia’s energy for a while. Then they send the youma against the Golden Kingdom, forcing Endymion to act. The Prince’s decisive actions against the attacks help him strengthen his position as the heir to the Earth’s throne, and to undermine the voices demanding a better ruler.

After all, what unites fractured clans better than a common enemy and a common leader?

Then it’s time for an infestation of monsters on the Moon, too. Mercury and Mars attempt to cleanse it. Venus knows how the two of them fight, however, and sends a wave after wave of monsters, until the two Senshi are exhausted and forced to retreat.

That succeeds in drawing the Queen out.

What she finds is a small tower built of scrawny monsters gripping one another’s bodies so tightly, no light falls through the living and breathing walls. Inside, she meets Jupiter, fuku black and eyes empty.

The Queen’s eyes narrow. “I had never expected _you_ to waver.”

Jupiter offers no response, simply falls on the offensive. The Queen lifts the Silver Crystal—which is promptly backhanded from her fingers as Venus attacks from behind, twisting and immobilizing the Queen’s wrists as Jupiter’s hands find the Queen’s neck and squeeze.

Jupiter is brawny and strong, tall and broad-shouldered. It’s easy to see Jupiter as a threat. Next to the pillar of power that is Jupiter, it’s easy to overlook a flirty blonde.

Venus leaves the Silver Crystal where it fell and raises one hand, dispelling the monsters all around them in a flash of light. Then she grabs Jupiter’s wrist and pulls her along as she walks away from the lotus-shaped jewel, struggling against Metallia’s will with every step.

One day, the sunspot creature will perhaps swallow the Silver Crystal. But not today.

The Queen will be remembered as having died for her people, as her foremothers before her. The Princess will be crowned as her mother’s successor, and inherit the throne as she was always meant to.

Venus retreats to Earth, where she intensifies the monster attacks. The young Queen extends an offer of alliance to Prince Endymion, who accepts. Serenity, Mercury, and Mars fight alongside the nobility of the Golden Kingdom, earning their respect and often friendship. And if they do not, Venus simply sends more monsters against the unswayed clans, wiping them out or reducing them to a non-issue.

And when the newly wed royal pair, two Senshi, and four Shitennou gather to battle Metallia herself, Venus is there to offer them a way in.

All she remembers of the final battle is drawing on Metallia as much as possible. Venus may be a corrupted shadow of her former self, but that only means she has a link to Metallia, and so she utilizes that link to its full extent. The sunspot monstrosity’s mind becomes muddled, its aim wavers, its focus shatters. In retaliation, Metallia pours scorching pain down Venus’ bones and sets her blood on fire with a mindless need to obey. But Venus is a Senshi, and has been sworn to obey her Princess long before selling her soul. She breathes through the torrent of pain and pours confusion in return, hoping that it will create an opening for her sovereign to exploit.

The next thing she knows, Serenity is kneeling next to her, one hand under Venus’ head and the other slowly moving the Silver Crystal over the Senshi’s body, endlessly repeating pleas for her to hang on and promises that everything will be all right.

“Don’t blame Jupiter,” Venus murmurs on her first free breath. “I made her do it. All of it.”

In the end, she survives—if barely. Serenity is stronger than Venus could have ever dreamed and married to the man she loves; the Silver Millennium is led by a more competent leader and at peace with the Golden Kingdom of Earth, the alliance cemented with a marriage that will likely last forever.

So even if she has to spend decades recovering, even if Jupiter will not look her in the eye for another thousand years, it’s a small price to pay.

 

~*~

 

 

> II. Boss Fight

**_SET OUT. CONQUER._ **

Jupiter growls through gritted teeth. She’s sitting down, squeezing her head in both hands, fingers tangled into her hair with no care or gentleness. She had figured out how to remain herself under the corruption and maintains her defiance—but she’s been beyond words for quite a while now. Venus wonders idly how much longer it’s going to take before Jupiter is reduced to howling all the time, pausing only to draw breath, in attempts to drown out Metallia’s voice.

She notices she has shifted her weight, ready to rise and act on Metallia’s will; she settles down again, sitting on one heel and resting her chin atop the other knee. The best she can do right now is wait. She did scatter as many clues as she could squeeze past Metallia’s clear and direct order against it; now she can only hope it will be enough. And that the others will come before it’s too late.

Venus knows she’s slipping, and has been for some time now. She catches herself thinking less, or thinking in the ways Metallia wants her to. She wastes time and energy on cruelty, or gives the youma deadlier weapons, or worse: her own malice. Sometimes, Metallia allows her a sense of fulfilment and pleasure after committing a particularly gruesome act. It makes Venus feels sick, however, which immediately brings self-awareness and more firm resistance, so it doesn’t happen often.

She tries to push back against all that. It’s about as easy as halting a glacier with her bare hands.

**_GO FORTH. DESTROY._ **

Venus closes her eyes, listening to another growl reverberating in Jupiter’s throat. Her fingers twitch in anticipation. She’s itching for anything that will put her in motion—the more violent, the better. She needs to break something. She needs to feel blood soaking her gloves. She needs to feel the warmth of torn flesh in her hands.

But none of that will help the cause that made her sell her soul to Metallia in the first place, so she just laces her hands as tightly as she can and presses the palms to her leg, barely short of wrapping her arms around herself. She just has to hold out now.

Mercury will put it all together. Mercury will lead them here.

Assuming she made the clues clear enough, of course. If she didn’t...

No. She did. And they will find their way here. If not thanks to Mercury’s observancy and intelligence, then thanks to Mars’ clairvoyance.

But Mars is clairvoyant, not omniscient. She can miss something crucial, and nobody will have the right to condemn her.

Venus takes a deep breath, as deep as she can while sitting curled up like this. Second-guessing her every thought is slowly driving her mad, but she clings to it still. Doubt is what makes her human. The youma never falter.

**_RISE. FIGHT._ **

“I don’t appreciate being told to tear another Senshi apart,” Venus says quietly.

Jupiter just makes a sound quite worthy of a rattlesnake and fists both hands in her hair. Venus winces, but doesn’t reach out to her; she has no right to take comfort in Jupiter’s presence, and any she could give would not be accepted. Not after what she’s done.

And to be quite honest, she doesn’t begrudge Jupiter for a desire to tear one specific Senshi apart, with or without Metallia’s influence. She just didn’t expect Metallia to get bored with them—or cut its losses and sic them on each other in hopes of getting at least a brief spark of unbridled hatred—so soon. Entities that have existed for hundred of years with next to no changes in their lives seem to have trouble comprehending miscalculation on their part, or resistance that they cannot wear down with power and patience. At least if Queen Serenity was any indication.

Venus muses that now there’s one more reason to hope the others get here soon, and stubbornly loops her mind on that thought to make herself stop thinking about how to kill Jupiter. They are equally fast, but Jupiter is far stronger, and at least as agile. And with no one else present to distract her, there is no hope of using her protective tendencies against her this time—

“I’m not thinking about this,” Venus murmurs to herself.

At the very least, she should make sure they kill each other simultaneously, so that neither of them has to waste away in Metallia’s shadow alone.

“I am not. Thinking. About this.”

Great. Now she’s hatching plans for a grand useless gesture. As if it wasn’t enough to grapple with the doubts and the commands—

**_FORTIFY. DEFEND._ **

The commands are changing tone.

That wasn’t an order to attack Jupiter. That was an order to obliterate someone making their way towards the two of them.

Venus lifts her head. She could swear she heard something, a heavier step, a voice. And judging from the way Jupiter’s breath hitches, she heard it, too. Moments later, two Shitennou enter her field of vision, checking their corners before signalling the others. And then, there they are: Serenity side by side with Endymion, flanked by Mars and Mercury, their backs guarded by two more Shitennou.

Venus lets out a sigh of relief, but at the same time, she can feel her gut freeze. This is going to be the worst conversation of her life. But if she can make her way through this, everything is going to be over. For good or ill, it’s going to be over soon.

One last deep breath, and she rises to her feet. Serenity’s face lights up when their eyes meet. Unlike anyone else’s.

“Venus... You’re alive! I thought we had lost you—How did you make it here before us?”

The young Queen stops talking only when she tries to take a step towards her wayward Senshi, and Mars immediately catches her arm to yank her back. Mercury reaches up to summon her visor, and her face immediately goes an unhealthy shade of pale.

Venus forces a smile, even as what’s left of her heart breaks a little. “Please don’t come any closer. We’re holding out for now, but... I can’t promise we’ll last much longer.”

“We?” Serenity’s eyes shift to Jupiter, who hasn’t moved yet. “What’s wrong? What happened to Jupiter?”

“She’s...” Venus makes a small helpless gesture. “In worse shape than I am.”

“What’s going on?” the young Queen demands, her momentary euphoria giving way to worry.

**_ATTACK._ **

Jupiter leans forward under the force of Metallia’s voice, squeezing her head between her knees now. Venus grits her teeth, straining with all of her being to keep an energy chain from appearing—and succeeds, just barely. When she can look at the group in front of her again, the Shitennou look alarmed and ready to defend their King from her, Serenity looks terrified for her, and Mars looks as if she’s just seen a ghost.

“What was that voice?!”

Venus had never heard Mars so spooked.

“That voice was the eldritch being that spawns all those youma, and it’s what had corrupted Jupiter and me,” she explains, speaking as hastily as she can, the pressure to remain silent building up in the back of her head until her vision starts to swim. “The only way to end this crisis is to cleanse it away; you can do it with the Silver Crystal, and I can call it forth for you. I will do everything I can to help you, but please...”

She has to pause, gritting her teeth against the pain. It’s not just the head now, but also the throat, as if an iron collar was drawn tight on her neck. It feels like the pressure is closing her airway, and every breath is liquid fire poured down her throat now.

“It’s okay,” the young Queen tells her softly, with all of her unshakable belief. “We can do it if we all work together—“

“Please cut me down if I attempt to move any closer to you,” Venus forces in a breathless rasp, the pain making her nauseous now. “And same goes for Jupiter.”

Serenity, Mercury, and Mars protest in unison.

“That’s not—”

“What are you saying—”

“We can’t do such a thing—”

Kunzite speaks over them. “ _We_ can do it.”

Even as the two Senshi and the Queen turn to him with indignation and disbelief, Venus manages a small smile.

“Thank you.”

Kunzite offers a nod in response.

“No one is cutting anyone down,” Serenity speaks firmly. “We can do it without sacrificing anyone. I can promise you this: no one is dying today.”

“You can’t—”

**_KILL._ **

This time, it’s Venus who lets out a strangled cry; Jupiter makes a sound that is the most dreadful thing to ever come out of her mouth, something between a whimper and a sob—something that should never have the right to be associated with her. Venus forces herself to focus, with morbid curiosity, on the phenomenon that is the ability of someone Jupiter’s height and build to make themselves so small.

Anything to push back against Metallia’s voice.

“Venus—” Serenity tries again.

“Look, can we argue about this when no sunspot-sized abomination is trying to make me attack you?” Venus forces out in one breath, her face contorted into a near-permanent grimace of pain now.

She can see, if barely, that Mars reaches to touch Serenity’s shoulder. No words are exchanged, only a look. The young Queen averts her eyes for a moment, then turns to Venus again.

“Okay. Call it forth.”

Venus nods, and turns her back on them even as Endymion, Mercury, and Mars step into an open V formation around Serenity—the Senshi in front of her and the King at her back—and the four Shitennou form a ring around them all. With a deep breath, Venus closes her eyes for a moment, and concentrates on everything that makes Metallia own her. The anger, the bloodlust, the ruthless single-mindedness, the appreciation of fine cruelty, the utter lack of remorse; she wraps everything into a neat bundle, and channels it all into her voice as she roars Metallia’s name.

With a deafening boom, the ground shakes, and a gigantic shadow appears, laceration-shaped eyes and a gaping maw staring the small group down.

“Now!” Venus yells.

Three-toned light erupts behind her immediately, blue and silver and red. The edges of the shadow begin to flicker and move, indistinct youma rising up from the ground, fanged maws and clawed limbs ready for victims.

But Venus is still marked as the champion of their creator, and so she levels one finger at them and speaks a single word:

“Halt.”

Caught between the will of Metallia and that of Venus, the youma freeze in place and slowly disintegrate into tiny shreds, flaking apart until there is nothing left. Were they made of carbon instead of darkness, it would be raining diamonds.

But then, the pain in the back of her head expands into a bass rumble audible for everyone present, and she barely has the time to realize she went too far this time—

**_OBEY!_ **

Venus is thrown to her knees with the sheer force of the command. Jupiter starts screaming even as she uncoils from the tight ball she had curled into, collapses, tries to rise, collapses again, and devolves into writhing in the dirt, clawing at her face with both hands and carving irregular, zigzagging patterns in the ground with the heels of her boots.

She can’t attack Serenity, but she can’t not attack Serenity, either.

Venus tries to move. It’s about as easy as if the weight of the ocean was piled atop her. Very slowly, feeling her muscles burn in protest, she slides one arm to the side, manages to grab one of Jupiter’s wrists, and hauls the hand away from the taller Senshi’s face.

She was the one who poured Metallia’s shadow into Jupiter, and she will be the one to draw it out.

It doesn’t work right away—Venus had been too successful with infusing her with the tainted energy. But then, Jupiter’s screaming changes tone, and the black drains from her uniform like an ink stain in reverse. Venus pulls the shadow onto herself, and her vision starts to swim. The three-toned light behind her fades and flickers out. The ravenous shadow in front of her deepens, its eyes and maw blazing at her with the merciless glare of the sun.

Metallia is all she can see now.

It takes her a moment to realize that Jupiter is screaming again.

“Let me go! Let go of me!”

Utter panic. Not ideal, if understandable. But then, words. A good sign.

Venus manages to loosen her death grip, and Jupiter yanks her wrist free, stumbling a few steps back. She whips her head around a few times, taking her surroundings in with wide, terrified eyes—Serenity’s group, Venus, Metallia—and immediately claps her hands together. A blinding flash, a deafening boom; Lichtenberg figures arc through the ground at her feet. The silver, blue, and red light is joined by green.

Venus isn’t sure if she’s not imagining it, but she can’t turn to check. With the almost complete hold Metallia now has over her senses, looking towards the others is too likely to provide a better aim at them.

Slowly, she sinks back to sit on her heels. If Metallia has such a powerful link to Venus’ mind, then it stands to reason that Venus has an equally powerful link to Metallia’s mind. And thanks to all the time that she spent contesting for control over her actions with Metallia, she has a pretty good idea of how its mind works.

Venus looks for calmness, and whittles it down with anxiety. Venus looks for confidence, and drowns it in insecurity. Venus looks for power, and drains it. The spot where she kneels darkens, frothing and bubbling like a tar pit, deformed limbs reaching out and clawing at her and sinking again.

There are no commands anymore, merely an endless torrent of blinding agony as Metallia spares enough attention to punish its rebellious champion, a typhoon of scorching fury at this entirely new brand of insolence. Venus feels her hands fist in the dirt even as she seizes the opportunity, and pours all she remembers of the feeling of mischievous joy into the link between their minds.

If persistent enough, the buzzing of a fly can drive even a god insane.

Whatever Metallia does, Venus floods with the exact opposite. Confusion against focus, joy against anger, apathy against alertness, compassion against hatred, hesitation against resolution—and drains as much raw power as she can handle all the while. The dark, roiling pool of blackness she’s kneeling in spreads; scrawny youma begin to hatch from it, and charge at those that Metallia still sends against Jupiter and the Shitennou.

Venus strips Metallia’s defences away and derails its attacks, shearing a path for the young Queen and the rest of her Senshi. And finally, when enough of the outer layers are cleared, the light strikes directly against the heart of the shadow. Metallia lets out an earth-rending screech that Venus can’t help but echo, as the Silver Crystal burns away all that holds her upright, and the last thing she registers before passing out is that the shadow breaks, its shards combusting into a shower of white sparks.

The blissful nothing is then cut short as sounds return—slowly, as if coming from behind a thick wall first, then steadily clarifying until she can make out individual voices. The first thing Venus can hear is Jupiter crying, crying like none of them have ever heard her cry before, the tension of having to fight something wedged deep into her mind and that of having to battle a being of Metallia’s magnitude with no warning having drained away and collapsed her knees under her. The second is Serenity’s voice, pleading for Venus to hold on, calling her name.

And the pain pulsing through her entire body like a second heartbeat is now a whole different flavour. It’s no longer a strain to keep moving despite a command reverberating through her head to remain still. Now it’s simply pain of damaged muscle and tendon and bone, where Metallia’s shadow had eaten through her, and then the Silver Crystal erased the corruption without rebuilding what had been torn.

Venus opens her eyes, and watches tears of relief roll down Serenity’s face.

“We did it. It’s over. It’s done.”

Venus takes a deeper breath, testing if she can draw enough air to speak. She can, but her voice comes out barely audible. Serenity leans down, and Venus tries again.

“Don’t blame Jupiter,” she repeats in a tiny rasp, painstakingly mouthing the words so that her speech is understandable. “I made her do it. All of it.”

“It wasn’t you. It was Metallia.” The young Queen cradles her Senshi’s cheek, pressing their foreheads together for a while. “But it’s all over now, and you’re both going to be okay. Let us take you home.”

Venus merely closes her eyes again. She can’t move, and Jupiter is sobbing like a child; they are not going to be okay. But everything else is, so she’ll take it.


	8. Sparkle Sparkle It’s The Fucking Holidays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Written for the winter break holidays exchange on Tumblr. My Sparklee that year was @howmanyheartaches.

“Haruka, you’re gonna pace a hole in the pavement.”

“Police station. Police station! What would have to happen so that Michiru needs me to pick her up at a _police station?_ ”

“Maybe someone finally figured out that she turns into a kraken every full moon and connected her to the mysterious monthly disappearances of innocent fishermen,” Minako muttered under her breath. “Boats drifting to the harbour at the break of dawn, empty, their decks sprayed with blood—”

“Mina, be serious! What if she’s in trouble? What if she got hurt?”

Minako sighed. “This is the last time I gave you coffee.” She hopped off the hood of Haruka’s car to put both hands on the taller Senshi’s shoulders, forcing Haruka to stop pacing for a moment. “Buddy. Friend. Amigo. Pal. The only thing capable of hurting her in a direct encounter is a meteorite. She fights monsters in-between attending high society parties, and honestly I’m not even sure which of those is more deadly. Now, you called Setsuna and she said she’s okay?”

“Yes.”

“Hotaru?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re here, freaking out but otherwise as okay as you could ever be. That means Lady Kraken isn’t hurt. And if she’s not hurt, she’s there because she wants to be there.”

Haruka shook her head a little, but she did seem considerably calmer when she spoke. “Why would she want to be at a police station?”

“I don’t know, bud, bribing a detective to keep the kraken case quiet?” Minako stepped away. “Ask her when she comes out.”

“Right.” Haruka glanced nervously to the police station’s door. Then she started pacing again, prompting a grumble from Minako. “Do you think this should be taking so long?”

“I haven’t worked with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police enough to be sure of that.”

“Well, what is your guess?”

“That she’s gonna walk out of there soon, give you a kiss, and you’ll both go home for a happily ever after,” Minako said with more patience than she felt. “Haruka, seriously. I know you’re gay, but control the gay. Don’t let it control you. Like it controls your wardrobe.”

That succeeded in getting Haruka to stop pacing. “Weren’t you the one wearing an open black and yellow plaid shirt over a tank top last week?”

“Yes, I guess I soaked up some of your aesthetic from being around you so much. I should probably bail before I get infected with anything else. Like that mustard blazer.”

“What’s wrong with my yellow blazer?”

Minako considered the balance of effort versus reward on this one for a moment. “That... you don’t have it right now?”

“I forgot it at home. I was kind of in a hurry to get here.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” By virtue of almost getting trampled by Haruka in her haste to get to her car. She just tagged along without even asking at first, before it turned out to be just more of Michiru’s nerve-fraying drama.

And surely enough, as if mentally dragging her was a summoning ritual, there was the woman herself, exiting the damn police station like a model entering the catwalk.

“Oh thank God,” Haruka breathed, and ran to hug her wife. “Are you okay? I was so worried—”

“I’m fine,” Michiru reassured her, reaching to Haruka’s cheek to pull her into a kiss. “You’re freezing. How long have I kept you waiting?”

“Oh, um...” Haruka scratched her neck, looking away. “A little while?”

“Almost half an hour,” Minako called back from the car.

Michiru sighed, turning to greet her. “Of course you’d also be here.”

“Nice to see you too, Nessie.”

“I ran into Mina when I was leaving the house,” Haruka spoke up again.

“That’s because I need my CD back,” Minako reminded.

Haruka winced. “Right. Sorry. Let’s all go home, then.”

Michiru inclined her head in reluctant agreement, and soon enough, all three of them were in Haruka’s car.

“Bud, this isn’t a racetrack,” Minako reminded very soon, her voice slightly tense. “Can you, like, not go straight to Ludicrous Speed?”

“What? Oh. Okay...” Haruka allowed the car to slow down a little, accompanied by a sigh of relief from the back seat. “Anyway, Michiru, what did the police want from you?”

“Testimony,” Michiru replied calmly.

“About what?”

“Well, do you remember Elsa Gray?”

Haruka frowned. “Of course I remember Elsa Gray.”

“Her birthday is approaching, and she mentioned that she wanted to change her coach the last time we spoke.” Michiru brushed a stray lock of hair from her face. “So I’m making the final choice easier for her.”

Minako snorted from the back seat. “Fighting evil by moonlight, being evil by daylight. How many careers have you destroyed this week?”

“One, and in doing so, sent ripples through three more. Whoever she decides to sign a contract with will have no choice but to treat her well.” 

Haruka glanced to her, but smiled when Michiru caught her looking. There were times when Michiru did scary things for the people she cared for—but in the end, she only wished the best for those she considered her family. And it was a good thing that she still kept in touch with Elsa. It was healthy to have friends.

“Say, my birthday wasn’t that long ago.” Minako leaned a little forward. “And there’s this asshole at the talent agency...”

Maybe not friends like Mina, though.

Michiru turned over her shoulder, amused, one hand keeping her hair out of her face. “Ara? And how would you fare knowing that not all of your career was won with your own strengths?”

“You bitch.” There was a hint of admiration in Minako’s voice.

Michiru smiled at her before turning away again.

“We’re there,” Haruka said as she parked the car. “Mina, I’ll get that CD of yours right away.”

“I’ll wait in the hallway, then, no need to take my shoes off if I’m gonna be putting them back on right away.”

Haruka frowned a little. “You don’t want to come in?”

“Nah. It’s getting late, anyhow.”

“Okay then. I’ll be right back.” Haruka hurried inside.

“Thank you for keeping her company earlier today,” Michiru said when she and Minako were alone.

Minako raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t do that for you.”

“I am aware. And it does not escape me that it’s hard for us to come to an agreement on anything, but...” Michiru paused for a moment, looked the younger Senshi straight in the eye. “But I’m glad her happiness is a place where we can meet.”

Minako’s expression softened a little. “You know I won’t go as far for her as you would. I’ve got others to take care of, too. But if I can help her... and you... be happy without compromising them, I’ll be right on your heels.”

“I know, and I am grateful for that.”

Minako nodded at that, but whatever she was going to say went unspoken, as Haruka came back in that moment.

“Here.”

“Thanks.” Minako took the CD she came for in the first place.

“You sure you don’t wanna come in?” Haruka tried again.

Minako smiled at her. “Nah. You know me and Lady Kraken don’t mix well. Catch ya later, lesbian.”

“See you, nightmare.” Haruka placed an arm around Michiru’s shoulders, even as Minako went on her way. “Let’s get inside. Want some tea?”

“That would be nice.” Michiru leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. “I think you still have some biscuits left, too.”


	9. Things You Said Meme roundup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The second prompt meme I've ran, closed up and completed. I tried to put myself on a limit of max. 500 words per prompt, and went over on five out of fifteen.

_**Minako and Haruka, things you said when you were crying** _

It was just another fight. One of the thousands we must have fought by now. Nothing special, right?

Wrong, as it turns out, given that Mars was slumped against the wall where she sat, too exhausted to even keep her eyes open, the palms of her gloves still trailing smoke, Jupiter was on an operating table, and we were just passed by a group carrying Mercury on a stretcher, unconscious, data still scrolling uselessly through her visor.

Wrong, as it turns out, given that you had your one good arm wrapped around my shoulders and clung to me with a frantically tight hold, crumpling the collar of my uniform in your hand, and sobbing in an uncontrollable way.

And I didn’t know what to do, because you never cry.

“They’ll pull through,” I was saying when I felt you tense up. I misjudged the reason why. “They’re going to be fine.”

I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sound like that again, before or after. Hoarse with effort to speak at all, thick with tears, and barely forced through gritted teeth, but entirely comprehensible:

“Quit lying to me.”

And then you kept crying, because really, what else was there to do?

“Will you believe me if I say that I’ll stay here with you until we know how hurt they are?” I asked finally, and you gave a shaky, uncoordinated nod against my shoulder. So I stayed right there, arms wrapped around you, until you couldn’t cry anymore.

 

~*~

 

**_Haruka and Michiru, things you said instead of "I'm sorry"_ **

The way you’re able to talk entirely in questions is awe-inspiring. Something as simple as a conversation becomes a weapon in your hands, and your adversaries seldom realize their defeat or the joke they became in your presence.

The way you’re able to never say some things, and withstand the burn of words unspoken, is kind of worrying.

“Are you all right?”

I know it’s you whose mind is filled with the ocean’s roar every night, but I’m not deaf either. I can hear the fault you see in yourself, like the haunted howl of the wind in a window left ajar, and it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

“Hold still. I’ll treat that wound.”

You think you’ve made me choose your path as my own. You think you’ve manipulated me into taking my henshin pen. You blame yourself for every injury, nightmare, and heartless decision our duty demands of me.

You don’t realize how lost, alien, and alone I’ve felt before the wind whipped around me for the first time, leaving me in uniform, and opening the broad expanse of the sky I’ve so longed for before me. Even without your confession that day, I would’ve chosen this fate.

“Let me take you home.”

I wish you’d stop doing that. I wish I could tell you that even if you held your tongue in that garage, I still would have chosen this path. I just don’t know how. Someday I’ll figure it out, though, and you’ll say that you love me without making it sound like an apology.

Someday.

 

~*~

 

_**Usagi and Rei, things you said after you kissed me** _

I know voicing it takes a lot out of you. You insist that it’s not hard, because you always insist things are easy when they’re the farthest from, and that you just don’t want these words to lose value from getting repeated all the time. I know it’s not completely an excuse to avoid saying it—I know that you treat it as almost sacred, that specific conditions have to be met for you to say it, and when you do, it’s always in a whisper.

“I love you.”

You hardly ever say it plainly like this. And when you do, it’s after you’ve kissed me, after you already know what I’m going to tell you back. And you always tense up, brace yourself, because every time it feels like taking a terrible risk. And a small part of me wants to strangle your father for making you associate love with being hurt where you’re the most vulnerable.

But the rest of me values you more than him, so I press my cheek to yours and whisper in your ear that I love you too, and every time I can feel you relax against me when you hear these words, breathe out a small sigh of relief, hold me a little bit closer.

I know you love me. I’ve known for so many years now. You’ve shown me time and again.

But it still makes me so happy to hear you say it.

 

~*~

 

_**Rei/Minako, things you said when I was crying** _

I can feel my gut sink when I hear the click of your heels. Of course you’d be here when it’s the worst time to be here. Just as I’ve almost managed to stop crying. Damn you and your timing. And damn me and my weakness.

Don’t reach for my hand. Don’t you dare call me with any of the endless supply of nicknames, as idiotic as they are endearing. For the love of all that is holy, don’t try to hold me.

Don’t be sweet to me, or I’ll fall apart.

Your hand finds my shoulder. It’s not a light, comforting touch. It’s a grip, firm and commanding.

“Mars, pull yourself together. It’s not over yet. We have a lot of work to do. Get up.”

Your voice is calm. It’s not a reprimand. It’s a reminder. And with your guidance, I can make myself stop crying. I can give you a firm nod and wipe my face.

You unsheathe the Moon longsword and I draw a bow of flames, and we both pretend we don’t hear the sizzle when tears evaporate from my gloves.

 

~*~

 

**_Chibiusa and Usagi, things you said when you were scared_ **

I’ve watched your hands shake so many times. I’ve heard your voice falter and break so many times. A minor surprise? Your yelp could startle a dead man awake. A minor embarrassment? You could outrun an Olympic athlete while heading to the safety of very brief solitude. Well, maybe not solitude, maybe the company of only a very snarky talking cat.

A friend in need? You’d run across city wards in the middle of the night. A loved one in danger? You’d be sent into a fevered need to act, and would not rest easy until the situation was resolved.

You were afraid so often, and of so many things. Sometimes for yourself. Sometimes for others.

You just never allowed the fear to paralyze you when things were serious.

How many ends of the world have you stopped? The best thing is... it doesn’t matter. A dozen, a thousand, in the end it doesn’t even matter. It’s what you do. Do you remember that one time when the four of your guards and best friends were strewn across the demolished street, and you had only barely managed to hold yourself up on one knee?

You probably don’t. It was just another crisis, anyway. The bread and butter of Sailor Moon, agent of love and justice. And after a while, every enemy’s gloating sounds the same.

I’m never going to forget your response.

“No,” you said simply, and that single word rang with an air of finality, as if you were stating a fact. It was even enough to make the enemy break their monologue. That was the first time I’ve seen, with stark clarity, the person you would grow up to become.

That was the first time I’ve heard my mother’s voice come out of your mouth.

I watched as you picked up your sceptre and pushed yourself to your feet, and as a firm, silvery glow started building up around you, and as your Senshi scrambled to their feet, heedless of their injuries, a new fire in their eyes. All because of you. All because you made a decision. All because you became a beacon of light for them to rally under.

All because you levelled your sceptre at the enemy and kept your voice commanding, adamant, calm.

“No one is dying tonight.”

 

~*~

 

**_Queen Serenity and Queen Beryl, things you said after it was over_ **

A kingdom laid waste to. A palace in ruins. A bloodline ended. All that my people had ever achieved and built and preserved through untold thousands of years of civilization—all now returned to moondust.

The White Moon clan was to watch over the people of Earth. We never thought we’d have to defend ourselves from them.

We never thought they would need protection from themselves.

Their Prince lies dead, as does my daughter. A ghastly, ravenous shadow takes up half the sky. From where I’ve fallen, it looks almost like a mantle, spreading over your shoulders and above your head. A sword trailing red droplets hangs lowered in your hand, a suit of blood-spattered armour shields your body, yet only a circlet protects your brow, allowing the maelstrom of red locks to cascade down your shoulders.

“It’s over. At long last, it is over.”

I know you are not talking to me even before you turn your head up, before you raise your weapon to salute Earth, a blue marble in the centre of the sky.

“Now, finally, we will be free.”

The monstrous shadow taking up the sky behind you also looks up at the planet. One of my hands tightens over the Silver Crystal. I may have lost—lost completely and utterly, lost everything—but I can still do what must be done, and Saturn still must obey.

 

~*~

 

_**Neo Queen Serenity and Ami, things you said too quietly** _

With you, it’s always unlike with anyone else.

Of course, you all writhe and arch your backs and clench your fists. I suppose that’s because I’m doing the same thing to you. But oh, it’s always different with you than it is with them.

The sound Jupiter makes can only be called a roar, and she starts scrambling to her feet even as her eyes are still glazed, her mind stuck in the past, and sometimes I wonder if the old pain does anything to shield her from the new. But as soon as she turns to me, and utters my old name—the name that, as I feel on some days, had died long ago—I know she is firmly anchored in the moment again, as if she had only zoned off for a shallow nap, like we had seen her do so very often.

Venus screams, unashamedly and loudly, but reorients herself fast. As fast as if she had never stopped moving. She always manages to crack a joke, too, even as she lifts her shoulders to keep herself from shivering. Thanks for the rez. Play of the game. I can never be certain whether she means to make me feel better, or to reassure herself that she’s still the same.

Mars’ breath catches and all she manages is a broken gasp, eyes wide and unfocused as she still sees more than she would like, more than I ever did, more than I would dare to ask of. But after a few blinks, her eyes clear, and she sits up to look at me and make sure I’m safe, then turns to find the others. She always shoves it down until everyone is safe, and because of that, it takes her so much longer to reflect on and accept what had occurred, what she had seen. Sometimes it’s weeks. Sometimes it’s months. The first time, it was almost a year—that is to say, until the second time.

You always clench your teeth for the longest time. And when your voice tears past your lips, it is a broken thing, a ghastly sound reminiscent of a wildfire in a paradise valley, of blinding a painter, and you always seize up in convulsions until you turn to your side and curl up, shivering, arms wrapped around your chest and chin pressed down between your collarbones.

Sometimes I wish I could lose count of how many times I’ve had to draw you all from the brink of death.

And yet here I am, one hand under your head and the other holding the Silver Crystal over your heart until your screaming breaks and fades into a shaky wail, then breaks again, and it becomes painfully clear that you’re crying this time, and whispering something, but I cannot quite make out the words.

Even so, I’m fairly certain you’re begging for the pain to stop. For me to stop doing this to you every time you fall.

I’m very sorry, but I can’t let you go.

 

~*~

 

**_Tsukino Ikuko and Mizuno Saeko, things you said at 1am_ **

Fitting how the only thing that brings us each other’s company is fear.

When thin pillars of light appear to hold up the darkened sky, so many people hope. The Senshi are fighting. The Senshi will protect us. They’ve done this so many times. They’ve won so many times.

While they hope, you and I fear, because we know who is the source of that light. You watch the blue and I watch the silver. When the light flickers out, we wait to see if it’s a steady change, if all colours fade at the same time, if the sky clears. And we wait to see if our children limp home, or if their friends have to carry them.

And when all wounds are dressed and all bones are set and all cuts are stitched, we are left with knowing it’s going to happen again. And again. And again, until they don’t come home, because one day they won’t, and we both fear that day more than we fear anything.

As we exit the hospital, me because the visiting hours are over and you because your superior forced you to take a break from work, I can tell neither of us is really here, we’re both still with our girls. Even as I take your invitation. Even as you knock back the fifth shot in a row, and only then pause for a bit, only then sigh and rest your head on your free hand.

I’m not used to how strong you prefer your liquor, so I’m still on my second glass by then.

“Sometimes,” you say quietly as you trace the rim of your glass with one finger. “Sometimes I wish our daughters had never met.”

And with that, I know that you’ve only ever seen the way Ami’s face contorts in a grimace as she presses one hand to her ribs—never once that it was laughter to cause it, or the way she still snickered right after the initial pain passed, or how she smiled at Usagi trying to gesticulate equally with her good arm and the one in a fresh cast, or how she looked at their friends when they came to see them.

But I’m unsure if tomorrow, you’d even remember saying what you did, so I just refill your glass and watch you down it again. If only it was as easy to make you stop seeing the glass as half-empty all the time.

 

~*~

 

**_Rei and Usagi during the Crystal Tokyo period, things you said over the phone_ **

I should have known you’d be busy if I called at this hour.

Though honestly? That’s not even true. It’s like with Ami these days, there’s no telling when or how long you’re going to be busy. Still, I should’ve known, expected it, braced myself for it.

But I did not, and I want to curse you and all those dearest to us both for kicking down the door to my heart and making yourself at home without as much as asking first. I really want to. Even as I, for the life of me, can’t.

It’s a marvel, really, that you find a moment to answer the phone. So it’s made that much worse when it’s not exactly you who answers the phone. You’re still in what we call Queen Mode in the mornings and evenings, the moments when we disentangle ourselves from everybody’s limbs and Ami rubs her eyes because they still itch, and Minako is pulling someone back to bed because “just five more minutes”, and Makoto is stretching like a happy lioness and it would be simply criminal not to admire the sight, the moments when we’re gathered around the kitchen table, the moments when we’re all in the same room and relaxing before bed, each in her own way, and it feels like we’re twenty years old again.

I call the person I love, and the person I serve picks up, relief clear in your voice as you hear me, hope as you ask how I’m doing, faith in me as you ask about the assignment I’m away on. It’s all measured. Tamed. Proper. You keep your cool and maintain your focus throughout, and I grit my teeth against a wave of sudden pain eating through my chest. If I heard you sound like this when we were teenagers...

I need to hear your voice—your own voice, bubbling with excitement because one of the crepe stands in the shopping district offers a new kind of filling now and it's so different and so great, and the seller smiled at you and you think he's starting to recognize you, because of course he is, you idiot, you're probably the source of half his entire income, and I close my eyes to see your face, but all I can see is the crown, the Queen, the crystal around you always a little more brightly lit with the candles and lamps, as if the Palace itself was whispering of you as its mother and mistress and monarch.

How I miss the times when all you’d light the room up with was your stupid grin and your unshakeable faith in people.

I’m the one who called, and I’m the one who ends the conversation, not to take up any more of your time (The Queen is busy. The Queen is working so hard. The Queen doing her best, for all our sakes.) and not to let you hear me crying, because if I have to endure this for one more minute I’m going to cry, and for the love of all that is holy, I’m not going to cry over a phone call.

Then you call me Mars instead of Rei and hang up, and I need to break something.

Good thing there’s a monster nest nearby.

 

~*~

_**Mamoru and Chibiusa, things you didn't say at all** _

When faced with an obstacle or a problem, since your youngest years and first travel to the past, sometimes you would ask for help or advice. Sometimes you would say that you need more information before you solve it. Sometimes you would say that you need to think it over before deciding.

Not ever _I can’t do it, I’m too scared, it’s too hard, it’s impossible._

No task is beyond you. No challenge is too daunting. No responsibility is too heavy. In a few days, you will don your mother’s crown, and I know you won’t stumble. We’ve raised you with its weight on your brow already.

And you always knew what had to happen before you could ascend the throne.

As you take the Holy Sword from Venus’ hands, you don’t ask her to rise from her knees. Your words for these broken old warriors are kind, and grateful, and resolute, and in a very brief speech you put the ground under their feet again.

You’ve grown up into a courageous, wise, compassionate woman, and you have both the tools and the drive to rule. Four Senshi stand to your left, your sceptre-arm; four Shitennou stand to your right, your sword-arm; Saturn stands at your back, so quiet and still as to almost be invisible. When all of them look to you, instead of feeling daunted by so much depending upon you, you only ever strive to measure up to all of their hopes and so much more. And my grief is eased with knowing we are leaving Crystal Tokyo in good hands.

 

~*~

 

_**Usagi and Ikuko, things you said that I wasn't meant to hear** _

After all these years of fighting monsters and evading the authorities at the same time, even I’ve gotten stealthy. I mean, what I can manage is still nothing next to Rei-chan just stepping out of sight before she can be seen, or Ami-chan moving like the fog she can summon, or Mako-chan’s grace of a figure skater, and don’t even get me started on Minako-chan’s absolute mastery of drawing exactly as much attention to herself as she wants to, from the maximum to create a diversion (or just enjoy the spotlight, really) to none at all when she’s just passing through—

The point is, it took a lot of practice, but practice was the one thing we’d never had too little of. And now I’ve learned how to move silently, be it across rooftops or along the streets. Little pathways where we can move unseen, safe spots where we can don and shed our transformations without being spotted, after all these years I have them memorized just as well as my friends do.

It feels great, being good at something.

So that’s why sometimes I do it for fun now. In the shopping district, around the neighbourhood, memorizing the security cameras and the secluded spots and the creaky floor tiles. It’s the easiest, and therefore the most fun when I’m not doing it seriously, in my own home.

It gets less fun if I happen to overhear my parents having an Important Conversation, though. Important like Dad asking Mum about when, does she think, I’m going to tell them about being Sailor Moon.

I mean, I was pretty sure Shingo had me figured out. He’s way sharper than he looks, and as he grew up, it was like he’s gotten exponentially smarter every week. I was also almost sure Mum knew, too, she had to wash blood out of my clothes too many times, and I don’t always manage to hide bandages or bruises from all the battles. But Dad isn’t home a lot, what with working long hours and tons of business trips, and I may have depended too much on all those sayings about how men don’t ever notice a thing.

I forgot that my father is an investigative journalist.

God, I thought I was so sneaky.

“Kenji,” I heard Mom say gently. “I know our daughter. She’ll take up responsibility when she has to, but it’s generally not her first choice. Somehow, she ended up being a hero to the entirety of Tokyo, maybe of Japan, maybe of the world. Her not saying a word about this all, for so long, tells me that she needs us not to know. She needs us to be her parents, not two more faces in that crowd. So I don’t think she’s ever going to sit us down and say it to us plainly, not if she has any other choice, and we shouldn’t push her to tell us.”

Sometimes stealth gets all the fun sucked out of it. So I sneak back where I came from, still without making a sound.

 

~*~

 

**_Usagi and Luna, things you said under the stars and in the grass_ **

The stars are so dim from the surface of Earth. My friends, all so much smarter than I am, would probably say it’s about atmospheric interference and light pollution and whatnot. For me, it’s just another part of the fog separating my past from my present.

The only aspect of my life—lives—that always navigates that fog without fail, so seamlessly that it might belong more to the in-between than to either reality, is you. We clash, like we always had, because you need me to become more than I can, change more than I want to. It’s annoying, usually, and especially in the moments when it happens. But if I look at it from perspective, without you pressuring me to change and learn and be responsible... well, let’s be fair, I’d flunk out when it was unimportant and later fail when it was important.

Finding a balance point between what you want me to become and what I’m willing to become hadn’t been good or fun or easy, but I think I’ve figured it out. And it seems to work just fine.

And despite our disappointments in each other, we do talk a lot, now just as back then. And the stars wheeling overhead seem to always draw the hardest conversations out of us.

“There will be a crown on your brow when the time comes, and my task is to prepare you for and support you in all that you will bear,” you’re saying, and in the blink of an eye, there is no grass under my hands, there is only cold marble. There is only the white of the hewn stone pillars, and the golden of the crescent moon on your forehead, and the black of the sky dotted with innumerable stars, and the white-blue-golden planet in the centre of that black, always in the centre, always out of reach.

“—as is your burden and birthright both,” I finish the sentence you’ve spoken all those thousands of years ago.

Your ears fold back in a sudden bout of fear. “You remember that?”

I’m trying to smile at you, trying to make it look reassuring. It comes out more like a pained wince. “It’s hard not to remember when I’m wearing this against my chest all the time.”

I place a hand against the brooch holding the Silver Crystal. Over my heart. It’s always over my heart. I think that’s how Serenity’s memories seep through the fog and into the mind of Tsukino Usagi. Can’t help it, anyway. I don’t feel right anymore without that familiar weight.

Even if I’m gonna collapse under it someday.

 

~*~

 

**_Michiru and Setsuna, things you didn't say at all_ **

Every time I am asked, I answer that periods of peace and quiet, where I can simply enjoy the company of those I hold dear and steal away moments of solitary contemplation, are what I value the most in life. Every time I am interviewed, I emphasise that peace and quiet are pertinent to the continued existence of my career.

I have little to no interest in letting people know how, in particular, your quietness is one of the very few things entirely eligible for driving me insane.

For the longest time it had only been me, me against the world, me against the world’s impending doom. Then it had been me and her, and it brought me so much happiness to know the one person I needed, the only thing I have ever wanted for myself—her closeness—would be mine, even as it brought me shame and sorrow to know that the one person I did not want to see walking the same path as I am—the path of forced allegiance to someone we barely knew and held no respect for—was doomed to walk it alongside me, and that I, knowing full well how it would end, had done nothing to dissuade her.

We had hammered out a working relationship, and hoped oh so desperately for more. We fought and planned and acted together, her the fierceness to give wings to my prudence and I the calculation to minimize the risk of hurt inherent in her righteousness.

And then, it was me and her and you, and we were both bracing ourselves for changes as fundamental as when we had first teamed up, a loner brusque enough to scare people away and an ornament placed on a pedestal high enough to keep people away merging into a self-sufficient, sustainable, inseparable unit. The shift of dynamics in what had suddenly become a group of three would, no doubt, be as groundbreaking as then—yet neither of us could name the direction these changes would go.

Our expectations could not have been more misplaced.

It was no revelation. It was no paradigm shift. It was no complete and thorough rewrite of our core beliefs. It was something we had missed while waiting for the brunt of the change to come, something too tender and unnoticeable to be railed against.

All you have changed in our lives is that, despite fate’s best efforts, they have become easier. It’s not quite that you make our burdens your own; you keep to the sidelines too much for that statement to be accurate. It’s that when we need aid, you are just—there, unspoken, at work.

And you will not say why.

There is no part of a Senshi’s duty that would require this of you. Your very presence in our lives is a breach of what little we know to be true of your duty—duty that you have a history of jeopardizing in order to protect our lives. You are not doing this to make us indebted to you; I’ve watched you long enough to be certain that your surprise whenever we return the favour is always genuine. You are not paying off an ill-conceived debt to what no one but you holds dear anymore; the past is to you a closed archive meant for safekeeping, and your eyes are always on what can and should be safely changed. Yet I know you well enough to see that you do not act without a reason—a rational, concrete reason putting you into action that will be a brick in the wall protecting the future. There is no reason of the sort for continuously keeping us company.

Just what is it that you are after?

 

~*~

 

_**Beryl, things you didn't say at all** _

Approaching click of boot heels. Zoisite offers a sparing bow.

“Queen Beryl, the troops are ready.”

Queen. A title that my supporters had usurped from the royal family and given to me as a sign of respect, of gratitude that someone would rise to fulfil the responsibilities that the heir to the throne was so prone to rejecting. A title placing me above the Prince and cementing my authority, one that came from taking direct action, as superior to his, derived from his bloodline.

A title I won’t be hearing before my name for much longer if the sunspot creature keeps eroding us. Already I catch myself thinking of it in terms of devotion and awe, no matter how meticulously I whittle that down with wariness and distrust. Already I catch myself thinking of it as _Queen Metallia_ and _Great Ruler_ , and I make additional effort to keep it as _the sunspot creature_ and _the abomination_ in my mind. If left unchecked, it’s going to twist my rebellion into becoming its cult, take my place as leader, and shove me to my knees as its high priestess. I can see it working its will on us; I can feel it wearing our minds down to replace what it doesn’t like with devotion to itself. The taint is already spreading through the Shitennou, and if the four of them fall prey to it, men of lesser virtue and status will follow like a tidal wave.

If its power proves to be lesser than that of the Silver Millennium, we will either die or be returned to Earth like misbehaving children, with a missive penned by Serenity’s hand asking for mercy on our behalf, imploring the Prince to be disappointed instead of angry. If its power is, against all odds, enough to beat back the Moon’s ruling dynasty and the nobles from all over the solar system they had shackled with oaths and forced to obey, I can only hope that I can seize their Silver Crystal and use its power against Metallia herself, that my army isn’t gone far enough yet to turn on me in that moment.

The army of monsters and men, both still obeying my orders, that’s waiting outside. The longer I delay, the more hopeless our future becomes.

“Then it’s time,” is all I say to Zoisite, and brace myself when he exits the command tent.

I needed something to match the power of the Moon. I thought I could confine Metallia’s ruin to myself, make that sacrifice to strike the silver chains from my people and rouse them to fight for their freedom when their Prince would rather have them wear their shackles like badges of honour.

I may have led them from one captivity into an even more dreadful one.

 

~*~

**_Inner Senshi Poly Pile, things you said at the kitchen table_ **

“Okay, firecracker, sit down.”

“I told you, I’m entirely capable of doing my part—”

Minako gave her a long look, entirely devoid of her usual playfulness. “I can tell you’re in pain. Just sit down and try not to move that arm, I can handle breakfast.”

Rei huffed, but did take a seat. “If you mess this up, I won’t be held responsible.”

“Rei, we’ve lived together for three hundred years. It’s enough time to memorize how each of us likes her morning drink, even for me.”

“A miracle in and of itself,” Ami said as she entered the kitchen, earning a smirk from Rei. She stopped beside Minako for a moment to kiss her on the cheek, went over to place a hand against Rei’s back. “How is your shoulder?”

Rei’s good hand rose to the bandages peeking out from under her sleeve. “Better, since I managed not to sleep on it.

“And whose contribution was that, hmm?” Minako piped in with a dazzling grin, even as she placed three mugs of coffee and two of tea on the table.

Rei rolled her eyes. “Yes, you helped.” Through gluing herself to Rei tightly enough to prevent her from moving throughout the night. But the end result did speak for itself, Rei supposed.

Minako threw one fist up in a victorious gesture. “Aw yeah. Gold star for Aino.”

Rei snorted, and tapped a finger against Minako’s nose to make her recoil. “I don’t think you quite meet the requirements for a gold star, Mina.”

While Minako laughed, Ami pulled a chair next to Rei. “Let me see.”

They had managed to get the top of Rei’s nightwear off with minimal wincing from Rei, though she did hiss in pain once. Ami gave her a searching look, starting to unwrap the bandages from across Rei’s collarbones, ones that were holding the shoulder wound’s dressing in place.

“How much does it hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Rei grumped, earning a disapproving look. “Alright, alright... it’s manageable, if barely.”

Ami gave her a nod, unperturbed by the admission of weakness. “I’ll get you more pain medication.”

“Thanks.”

“And a good morning to us all,” Makoto greeted, steering a still half-asleep Usagi away from the doorframe and earning a small chorus of ‘good morning’s in response. “Rei, how’re you doing?”

“Good, you?”

“Great.” Makoto ran a finger along one of the still reddish claw marks on her left cheek. “No blood anymore, even.”

“Hmm.” Minako came over to take Makoto’s chin in two fingers and turn her head, examining the new set of lines drawn through her skin. “You know, I think I have a thing for women with scars.”

Makoto laughed. “Wow, that would in no way explain your taste in spouses.”

“Just lean down, titan.” Minako stood on her toes to kiss over the claw marks.

Meanwhile, Usagi had found her way to a chair without walking into anything along the way. However sleepy she seemed, she blinked the haze from her eyes immediately when she saw Ami very slowly, very carefully peel the dressing stained with clotted blood off Rei’s shoulder.

“How’s it looking?” Usagi asked, a worried edge to her voice.

“Clean,” Ami said calmly. “There doesn’t seem to be an infection, it’s barely bleeding anymore; I’d say it’s going to scar within the week. Get me some clean gauze from the medical cabinet, would you?”

“Right away.” Usagi sprang to her feet.

Makoto turned to them, one arm still around Minako’s shoulders. “That was a pretty bold move you’ve pulled yesterday, Rei.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I would’ve gone with that myself,” Minako added. “Too risky. Seriously, I don’t know how you pulled it off, but it really paid off for all of us.”

Usagi handed the packaged gauze to Ami, who took it with a grateful nod, and cupped both of Rei’s cheeks to kiss her forehead. “You were so brave.”

The only reason Rei didn’t flip her hair was that one of her arms was down for the count. “Oh, please. Like that was hard.”

The corners of Ami’s lips quirked up. “Hold the gauze in place. I’ll take care of the rest.”


	10. How Does One Do Family

Michiru could scarcely sleep alone.

It hadn’t always been the case. It had begun to be the case shortly before she and Haruka had infiltrated the now-forgotten Mugen Academy—when they had agreed to sleep in the same bed as a means of warding off or overcoming the nightmares of Silence that plagued them both nearly every night. It had been easier to shake the apocalyptic nightmare off with another’s heartbeat in their ears, another’s hand in their hair. By the time they had taken to do more in the same bed than simply sleep, Michiru had grown so accustomed to Haruka’s presence, she took to waiting for her with going to sleep.

And well into their married years, the habit of washing another vision’s horror and grief away with the touch and scent and sound of Haruka by her side had become so strong, it was difficult to handle another image of crumbling future alone. Even if Haruka was absent for a mere few nights and days, as she was now, it meant just as many restless nights and days for Michiru.

She turned to her side, stroked the sheets where her wife should be. As irksome as Michiru could find Haruka’s tendency to be an unbelievably clingy sleeper, she also found the bed without Haruka to be unbearably empty and cold.

Michiru rose to her feet and padded out of the bedroom before slowing down to a halt, realizing that she did not know what to do with herself. The violin was out of the question so late at night. The mere thought of painting was repulsive; she had not been able to finish a single piece for almost a month now. Sleeping pills were never helpful; if they worked on her at all, the result was that she couldn’t wake up from another vision no matter how hard she clawed her way towards consciousness, and the visions would always come, inevitable as the tide and the Moon’s phases that bent the ocean into submission. With a sigh and a feeling of defeat, Michiru went for the only medicine she had ever found marginally helpful.

Which was how, when the fabric of reality yawned open in the genkan and Sailor Pluto stepped through the tear, her staff dissipating into a thin column of silver smoke and her uniform fading away into wisps of dark mist to reveal casual clothing, she found Michiru on her fourth glass of cognac.

Michiru looked up at her housemate over laced hands. “Welcome home.”

Setsuna’s eyes flicked to the clock, then to Michiru again, this time full of worry. “You’re still up at such a late hour?”

“As evident.” Michiru gestured to herself with one hand, reaching for her glass with the other.

“May I join you?” Setsuna asked simply.

“Make yourself comfortable. Truly, this is your house as much as it is mine.”

That earned her a sad smile, but not a remark, even as Setsuna pulled a chair to sit on Michiru’s left. “You seem troubled.”

Michiru gave a dismissive hum, draining her cognac glass. “No need to concern yourself. A mere vision of impending apocalypse, of all I have built for my family and won for my Princess crumbling away, is no longer enough to trouble me. After all, I’ve been dreaming about the end of the world ever since I was a child, with one particular end of the world recurring almost every night for four years on end. Yet another flavour of destruction and loss wouldn’t cause me any considerable distress now, would it?”

Maybe it was the cognac. Or maybe Michiru needed to say it out loud.

To Setsuna’s credit, she did not take the opening, did not exploit the sudden vulnerability. She simply took Michiru’s hand.

“Allow me to tell you about the future.” She waited for Michiru to nod. “Versions of the future are shaped when individuals with influence over those versions make decisions. That is why you had started dreaming of Silence when the Messiah of Silence had possessed a host on this planet, and only dreamed of it more frequently as the Death Busters’ plans progressed. As long as you don’t have recurring visions, they are unlikely to come to pass; you are only seeing them because you are a person who feels the need to be prepared for every outcome. And should any of your visions become persistent again, please know that nothing of what you see is inevitable. You are a person with immense influence over the future.”

“Because I’m Sailor Neptune?” Michiru asked, hoping she sounded more indifferent than miserable.

Setsuna shook her head. “Not merely because of that. Because you’re Kaioh Michiru. You know how to influence people, how to bend them to your will and make them think the ideas you’ve had them follow were their own.” Gently, she squeezed on Michiru’s hand. “You’re cunning, articulate, perceptive, and resolute, in addition to powerful. Please believe me that if there is any version of the future you do not accept, you have the means to change the outcome to your liking.”

Michiru stared at her for a moment longer, looking for any sign of deceit, yet finding only sincerity and kinship. There they were, one able to see the future and the other sworn to protect it, sharing a table and the hours in the quiet of the night, when feelings were easier to be spoken and lies were harder to be made convincing.

And Michiru had never known Setsuna to lie before. Conceal some of the truth, perhaps. But never outright lie. So she looked down, trying to conceal tears of relief stinging her eyes, and squeezed back on her hand.

“Thank you.”

She was rewarded with a small smile, and not a sad one this time. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

Michiru gave a nod. “Please.”

Setsuna’s thumb traced the back of her hand before pulling away as she left for the kitchen, allowing Michiru to wipe her tears away in private. A few minutes, and Setsuna returned with two slightly steaming teacups. They shared a comfortable, thoughtful silence as they waited, and then as they drank, Michiru recognizing the Pai Mu Tan infusion on the first sip. No matter how many times she, Haruka, or Hotaru had tried, they could not make it taste quite the same. Nobody brewed tea quite like the guardian of time.

When they had finished, and Setsuna rose to gather the teacups as she always did, Michiru stepped closer to her and drew her into a hug.

Maybe it was the cognac. Or maybe Michiru did need someone in her arms, even if just for a moment.

After an eternity that saw the clock tick six times, just as Michiru was deciding to pull away, the embrace was returned, Setsuna’s open hand cradling Michiru’s shoulder and the other resting against the middle of her back. While it was quite noticeable that Setsuna had been swinging a staff for untold thousands of years now, the embrace was far from crushing—indeed, Michiru found herself held as if she were a holy treasure worth of every effort ever made in order to protect her.

Haruka always held her in a way that spoke of the fervent love for her wife and no less fervent devotion to the duty that was their birthright and burden both, but also brought the whisper of the winds, the call to unbound freedom in the broad expanse of the sky. Hotaru didn’t reach out to her often, but when she did, Michiru could swear any noise would fade a little, and any silence would deepen. The few, intrusive, and uncalled for, though not entirely unwelcome, hugs she had received from Usagi were the bright, infectious belief permeating that girl given action.

In Setsuna’s arms, there was a safe haven, as if she could ward off all evil simply with an embrace; as if she could soothe all hardship and doubt simply by letting Michiru’s head rest against her chest. While her mere presence brought a sense of equanimity and focus, being held by her gave peace and tranquillity, and allowed all tension to dwindle like fog fading in the midday sun, like autumn leaves falling to the forest floor.

And Michiru found she did not want to pull away.

She still did, eventually, and was released easily, even as she looked up at Setsuna.

“Thank you. I think I’ll try going back to bed.”

The guardian of time inclined her head with a small smile. “My pleasure. Sleep well.”

Maybe it was the cognac. Or maybe those deep burgundy red eyes really were a little more glossy than usual.


	11. Space prompts: Minako with Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow okay so apparently I forgot to crosspost this one in July last year. It's part of a prompt meme I had ran on tumblr back then in an attempt to get myself to write Sailor Moon again. On the grand scale, it had failed and I just switched fandom hells to Overwatch, but I still have those prompts saved up for whenever I'm capable of working in the 'verse freely again.
> 
> Prompt: "Have you ever had alcohol?" for Minako.
> 
> wordcount: ~4.2k; trigger warnings: blood, burns, alcohol, needles

The night air was pierced with the howl of police and fire-fighter sirens, slashed with the choppy rumble of helicopter rotors; all that remained of one of the warehouses in the docks district was a single wall and a little portion of the roof in the middle of flames going up like a bonfire, starting to spread to nearby buildings. Artemis’ ears swivelled back against the noise as he kept running. This was the place Minako had gone to scout out with the Interpol agent. And though the agent was right there, getting patched up by the paramedics and explaining herself to someone in the uniform of the London police, Minako was nowhere in sight. Which could mean she had managed a clean getaway. Or it could mean things were extremely wrong. Things were, of course, very wrong already, what with the still-burning warehouse that apparently had been packed chock-full of highly flammable materials not long before the two went there. Artemis stopped for a moment, panting.

The obvious escape routes, ones that a normal person would use, were blocked by the authorities. The police helicopters had the whole neighbourhood illuminated; anyone trying to roofhop would be spotted immediately. The only way for Minako to get past the police would have been to act neither as herself nor as Sailor V.

Where would she never go?

Weaving between the fire-fighters’ legs, Artemis trotted closer to the burning ruins. The Interpol agent was on this side; it was probably where they had entered the warehouse from, then. The fire trucks were to the right, and if Minako hadn’t been found—as was apparently the case, given that the Interpol agent was yelling at the London policeman and any fire-fighter who would listen to go in and find her—she had not gone right. The back wall of the warehouse was the only one still partially standing, and it was too far even for a Senshi to make it. Either she’d gone towards there and was dead, or she’d gone left and wasn’t necessarily dead.

So he ran left, earning an unintentional kick along the way when a fire-fighter tripped on him, and into a narrow space between the walls of two buildings. An adult human wouldn’t fit through it—but a teenager could. Artemis trotted forward, to a dark and empty street with a drainage well in the middle.

Sewers.

Minako would never go into a sewer.

Artemis sniffed the well’s lid—slightly out of place, as if it’d been moved—and nodded to himself in silence. The ambient scent would fade soon enough, and it was unlikely that the police would bring search dogs to look for someone presumed to die in a fire.

Now, no matter how often she seemed scatterbrained beyond all hope, Minako had a really good sense of direction. The attic they were currently holed up in wasn’t far away, and if she was hurt, that’s where she’d be headed to lick her wounds and figure out how to get even. Artemis didn’t want to risk moving the drainage well’s lid again, to avoid putting anyone on Minako’s trail—but if he went from one well to another towards their building, he’d run into her eventually.

That is, if she was in good enough shape to make it all the way there.

He’d check. But not at this well.

The next one was near a busy road intersection, and wouldn’t do at all. The next, right next to a corner store. Another, by a playground full of parents picking their children up. And so, Artemis trotted on, with occasional bouts of running in long, fast leaps to get away from a persistent teen, until he was on the street by the abandoned building the two of them had holed up in.

Artemis glanced around to confirm there was no one in sight—the street empty, no windows lit—then he turned to the drainage well. With a small glint of the crescent moon sigil on his forehead, the well’s lid was pulled aside, and Artemis leaned forward to look into the hole.

Dark, and quiet, but not silent; there was a distant, measured sloshing sound echoing through. Footsteps, most likely.

“Mina!” he called into the sewer.

He listened out, but the only sound coming forth was the echo.

“Mina!” he called again.

“Here,” a weak reply came through, causing Artemis to sigh with relief even as the fur on his neck stood on end with dread. The way her voice sounded, she was in a lot of pain.

“Coast is clear,” he said into the sewer. “It’s safe to come up; can you?”

His only response was a groan, then a metallic sound when Minako grabbed onto the stepladder leading out of the well. Each pull agonizingly slow, step by step she hauled herself up, and after good fifteen minutes crawled out onto the street and stayed on her knees there, panting. She was in casual clothes, not the combat uniform; the jacket was zipped all the way up, the jeans were caked in the sewer’s contents up to mid-thigh, and she was barefoot, with the shoes tied together by the laces and slung over her shoulder. Her hair was gathered up to avoid meeting her trousers’ fate, and badly singed on one side; her face was pale as a sheet where it wasn’t covered with soot, and her hands were slick with blood.

Artemis stepped closer to her, whiskers rising against the stench. “How bad is it?”

“Get me the spare keys,” Minako rasped, her voice hoarse with pain. “Think mine fell out of my pocket when I was throwing up.”

Artemis’ tail twitched slightly. He didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone, not in this state, but she did need to come up as fast as possible. So he squeezed himself under the gate and ran for the keys they had hidden under the stairs leading to the back door, took the slightly rusty ring in his teeth, and trotted back to Minako—who had braced a foot against the ground and a forearm against her filth-covered knee, and was pressing her free hand against her stomach. She managed to shift her weight enough to take the keys from him, then push herself up and open the gate. Her steps were jerky and uneven, but slowly, Minako made her way towards the door, Artemis matching her pace throughout and looking at her worriedly; after unlocking the door, she opened it by leaning her whole weight against it, and barely regained her balance in time to avoid falling to her face.

“You’re almost there,” Artemis encouraged when Minako stopped, leaning against a wall with one shoulder. “Two flights of stairs and we can start taking care of you.”

“I’m not—” Minako swallowed, hard. “I’m not sure I’ll make it up the stairs.”

“You’ve made it this far. Do you think you’re gonna black out?”

“No, I’m just a touch light-headed.”

“Then you’ll make it up the stairs. Come on. You can do it.”

“Yeah.” Minako sniffed, and blinked some of the pained haze from her eyes. “Yeah, I can do it. I can do it. In a minute.”

Before Artemis could remind her that as long as she was bleeding, they did not have a minute, Minako peeled the socks soaked through with the sewer’s contents off her feet, then unlatched her belt buckle with the hand she wasn’t pressing to her stomach and walked out of the filthy jeans, starting towards the staircase. The trousers’ waistband was stained dark red; small rivulets of blood were running down her skin, droplets gathering on the edge of her jacket, falling down to splatter on her legs and the floor.

Artemis matched Minako’s pace as she climbed the stairs, one arm braced against the wall and each step a measured, excruciating effort. She had to pause between floors for a moment and lean against a wall again, panting, her face even paler than before. He brushed against Minako’s leg, tail lining with her calf.

“Come on, you’re almost there, just a little farther...”

Minako gave a shaky, uncoordinated nod at that, with no verbal confirmation to follow. Two heavy breaths later, she started climbing the second flight of stairs, shoulder scraping against the wall as she kept leaning against it while walking, too unsteady on her feet to remain standing without support now. Artemis braced his head against the door at the staircase’s top and shoved with all he had, trying to push it open for her; as soon as Minako stumbled through, she braced her back against the nearest wall and allowed her knees to give out, sliding down into a sit to stay there, head hung and limbs sprawled, even the hand she kept cradled to her belly falling now.

Artemis climbed to his hind legs, touching his nose against her cheek. “Mina.”

She groaned, but opened her eyes.

“We gotta patch you up, Mina.”

“Yeah.” Minako blinked a few times, then straightened her back with visible effort. “Gotta wipe my hands first...”

“Put the gloves on before you start with your injuries,” Artemis reminded sternly before grabbing one of Minako’s scarves in his teeth and trotting back to her. “I’ll get the first aid kit.” Or rather, what little they had left of one, really.

He dragged the kit back towards Minako just as she succeeded—on the third try—at unzipping her jacket. Her t-shirt was off, bundled up against her stomach, and soaked halfway through with blood.

“Damn it.”

“Yeah.” Minako wiped her hands with the scarf as best she could. “The warehouse—”

“—was a trap. I didn’t make it in time to warn you,” Artemis finished for her. “I’m sorry.”

Minako’s lips peeled off her teeth in a half-grin, half-grimace of pain. “Long as I live through this, I’ll forgive you if you take me out to dinner. Just make it fancy.”

“First we gotta keep you warm. I’ll get you the blanket.”

“No, I’m gonna bleed on it.”

“Washing it in the bathroom sink later is still gonna be better than hypothermia right now.” Artemis bit down on the blanket’s corner and started dragging it towards Minako, digging his claws into the wooden floor tiles for more leverage.

“You’re just saying that ‘cause you won’t be the one doing the washing...”

He grunted around the fabric in his mouth, but kept pulling. It wasn’t exactly easy to pull the blanket over her back, what with having one free hand with an opposable thumb between the both of them, and the result looked pitiful, but it would work well enough.

“Now that cold is out of the way, how many wounds?”

“Some burns,” Minako indicated her left shoulder blade and entire left arm, where she had shielded her face from the initial explosion. “Feels like some in my throat, too. Three cuts in total, from when the shrapnel went flying.” She pointed to the two across her belly and left side, where she had tried to stem the blood with her t-shirt, and one slashed across her right bicep.

“Did any of the shrapnel stick in?”

“No.”

“Good. Let me see.” Artemis climbed over Minako’s leg and sniffed at the deep, jagged cuts in her belly. “This one’s just blood... this one’s too. Okay, whatever hit you on the side glanced off of your ribcage, and the front one isn’t deep enough for any organs to get damaged. How’s the cut in your arm?”

“Stopped bleeding along the way.”

“Okay. Let’s start with cleaning the cuts. Pre-boiled water and soap.”

“Artemis, I’m not gonna get up right now.”

“Okay. Okay, do we have any hydrogen peroxide left?”

Minako shook the small bottle. Sounded almost empty. “Not enough for all of this shit.”

Artemis paused for a moment, sat down to focus. “Alright. Empty your toiletry bag and give it to me, I’ll bring you what we need. Get started on what you can take care of while I’m gone.”

Minako was too beat up to question him, and too well aware of what her companion, friend, and mentor was capable of to laugh at him. All she did was take the toothpaste out of the small bag, then toss it to him.

“Just come back soon.”

“I’m not leaving you now, not after all we’ve been through,” Artemis promised. “Before I go, anything you need that we have?”

“Duct tape.”

Artemis’ tail twitched. “Mina. You can’t just duct tape a wound closed.”

“We’re out of elastic bandage,” Minako shot back. “I’m gonna need this arm to patch up the other cuts, okay?”

“Duct tape is not solving the problem!”

“You got any better ideas?”

Artemis stifled a low growl, rising in his throat, and rolled the duct tape along the floor until it was in Minako’s reach. “Alright. Disinfectant, bandages, do we have gauze?”

“Barely enough.”

“Burn dressings?”

“We’re good. Wait, no, bring some if I’m gonna have to change them.”

“Alright.” Artemis looked at Minako again, her eyes dark with pain and face still pale. “Painkillers.”

“God yes.”

“Okay. Keep the deeper cuts from bleeding as best you can, and don’t drink anything yet. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” With that, Artemis took the toiletry bag in his teeth and trotted down the stairs.

“Sure, Dad,” Minako muttered at the empty room, wrapping the duct tape around her midriff to hold her t-shirt in place against the cuts and free up her other hand. Then she rolled up the cleaner edge of the scarf, bit down on it, and poured the remaining peroxide over the cut in her right arm.

When the pain subsided enough for her to see again, she folded up her handkerchief and attached it to the duct tape; with the fabric pressed to the cut, she stuck the tape to her arm, and clumsily pulled it around a few times to hold the makeshift dressing in place. Clothing shears from the first aid kit weren’t the best tool for cutting duct tape, but in the absence of scissors, they had to make do. Minako smoothed the tape out, opened and closed her right hand a few times. Okay. This wasn’t the greatest idea she’d ever had, but as long as it meant she was going to be able to use her dominant arm without bleeding from it, the idea ranked pretty high up among the good ones.

Time for the burn, then, at least until Artemis came back.

She hadn’t been burnt much before, and didn’t remember the proper first aid right. She was pretty sure she was supposed to cool the burn under running water, but she’d neglected that in favour of escaping with her life; now parts of it were blistered and weeping, and so painful that Minako was pretty sure she was going to be the one weeping sometime real soon.

That was the bit where the rubber gloves were a must, probably. And a sterile dressing. Yeah. Wait a sec, there wouldn’t be much sense to putting a dressing on it before cleaning it up, right?

Trying to pat the burn dry with the clean portion of the scarf was, all in all, even lower on the list of great ideas than duct taping the cut in her arm closed, Minako mused as she screamed into the scarf’s end that she had bitten down on. It did yield the result she needed, though, so after wiping the tears from her face—and smearing the soot on it even further, no doubt—she pulled the gloves on, took all non-stick dressing out of the first aid kit, and covered the burn in them, securing the gauze in place with more duct tape.

She was gonna look like an artisan vase that’d been dropped and patched up by a toddler pretending that nothing happened, Minako thought to distract herself from the pain.

Pressing the tape to the dressing’s edge along her collarbone, Minako raised her head at the tell-tale patter of tiny steps on the wooden staircase. Artemis pushed the door open, the toiletry bag in his teeth evidently heavier now, and trotted to her side before dropping the bag down and placing a front paw on her leg.

“I made the rounds as fast as I could. How are you holding up?”

Minako sniffed, pulled the scarf out of her mouth. “I don’t know how, but I’m hanging in there.”

“Have those two cuts stopped bleeding yet?”

Minako peeked under the t-shirt pressed to her stomach. “Mmm. Nope.”

The tomcat was quiet for a while.

“Artemis? How seriously am I hurt?”

He looked up at Minako. “Are you sticking to the plan where you don’t see a doctor here in England unless you’re literally dying?”

She nodded, even as a decidedly bad feeling washed over her—as if a giant, ice-cold fist had gripped her gut.

Artemis looked away from her face. “Then you’re gonna need to thread a needle.”

Minako spent a good moment just staring at him. “You want me to stitch myself?” she asked quietly.

“You need stitches, Mina. You’re not seeing a doctor to give them to you—”

“—and you don’t have opposable thumbs, I get it.” Minako covered her face with one hand for a while. “How bad, do you think, is it going to hurt?”

“I’m sorry,” Artemis said softly. “I ran as fast as I could, but it still wasn’t enough to warn you of the trap in time.”

Minako took a deep, shaky breath, trying to keep the fear at bay. “Walk me through it.”

“Of course.” Artemis nudged the toiletry bag towards her with his head. “I got you bandages, burn dressings and pain meds for later, and... Well. Disinfectant.”

The pause grabbed Minako’s attention, which wasn’t extremely hard when she was practically begging for anything to turn her attention from the prospect of performing self-surgery within minutes. She opened the bag and pulled out a bottle of amber-coloured liquid.

“Artemis, is this—is this booze?”

The tomcat sighed. “Scotch whisky. Forty-five percent alcohol content. Easily enough to disinfect the cuts; soak a clean piece of cloth in it and press it to the wound. And, well, it should be enough to drown out some of the pain for when you’re ready. Just thread the needle before you start drinking; both are inside the first aid kit.”

Minako did not ask where he got the supplies, particularly the bottle. It was better not to know, probably.

She pulled the duct tape off her skin from where it was keeping the blood-stained t-shirt in place. The cuts weren’t bleeding a lot anymore, but they were still bleeding.

“Shite,” Minako said quietly, with calmness she did not feel.

If they just had the good sense to stop bleeding already.

She reached for the needle. Threading those things was never easy—and it certainly wasn’t made easier by wearing rubber gloves slick with her own blood, or by the fact that her hands were trembling. When she finally succeeded, she tied the needle to the thread, carefully put it down on her thigh, and reached for the bottle.

“Clean piece of cloth, you said?”

Artemis looked around. “Where’s your kerchief?”

Minako pointed to her right bicep, circled with duct tape several times around.

“Oh. Alright, there’s gotta be something else.”

“I never thought I was gonna say this to you, but this is where we’re at.” Minako cleared her throat. “Bring me a change of underwear.”

For a very long moment, Artemis stared at her in dead silence. Then he walked over to her backpack. “Yeah, alright, that’s gonna count as a clean piece of cloth.”

Minako snorted in a desperate attempt to make the situation a little less terrifying. “I’ve got a man carrying my panties in his teeth, someone save me.”

Artemis put the underwear into her waiting hand. “Mina, please.”

“Right. Okay.” Minako rolled up the scarf again, put it back in her mouth, cracked the bottle open and soaked the glorified clean cloth in the Scotch, then put it against the wounds.

She only managed to choke off some of the resulting howl of pain, and mostly thanks to the scarf she was biting down on. Black snowflakes fell before her eyes, and the rush of blood in her ears became deafening; when she could see and hear again, she found herself slumped down and panting, heart beating too hard and too fast in her chest.

“Mina. Mina, talk to me.”

She leaned against the wall again, spat the scarf out, and attempted to get her breathing under control. “Shite.”

“Now would be a good time to start drinking,” Artemis said softly.

“Uh-huh.” A few more controlled, slower breaths, and Minako took the bottle again. For about three seconds, drinking the Scotch was okay, if a little numbing to the tongue.

Then it was like inhaling the fresh explosion’s fire and smoke all over again, just with a slightly richer aftertaste.

“Shite!” she rasped when she managed to stop coughing.

“Okay, wait for the alcohol to hit you.”

“It just did, Artemis, it punched me in the throat like the fist of an angry god.”

“I meant, until it makes you dizzy.”

“You do realize that blood loss took me there like two hours ago?”

“Until you feel weird to a point never observed before?”

“That’s fair, I guess.”

Artemis looked at her sympathetically. They both knew she was stalling.

And the alcohol, praised it be, did go straight to Minako’s head, making her seriously question the existence of gravity. It felt like there was no up and down anymore. It checked the box of “weird to a point never observed before” though, and Minako reached for the threaded needle with a still-gloved hand.

“Okay. Let’s bloody well do this.”

Funny how her hands weren’t shaking anymore.

“Five stitches on the side one,” Artemis was saying. “Four stitches on the front one.”

So she pressed the edges of the cut in her side together with one hand, causing some more blood to spill from it, as if it hadn’t bled quite enough yet, and forced a growl of pain to stay in the back of her throat as she pierced the needle through her skin and dragged the thread behind it.

“Scream if you need to. Just don’t grit your teeth, or you’ll break them.”

The prospect of screaming was becoming more and more appealing with every suture Minako completed, to tell the truth. She did manage to keep it down to broken up gasps through the first three.

“That’s solid work, Mina. Keep it up. Just a little more.”

Then she could feel the Scotch-induced haze clearing away, so she drank again and coughed again and shivered as the liquid fire churned in her stomach again. It didn’t exactly drown the pain out; a more accurate statement would be that it made her feel so nauseous that up to a point, the nausea distanced her from the pain.

The problem was, she appeared to be way past that point.

“You’re doing great. Halfway there. You can do it.”

The needle finally slipped from her hand, and she curled up around herself, a sob tearing from her chest, tears streaming down her face through the soot. “It hurts, Artemis, it hurts.” The burns, the cuts, and now the stitching, all compounding into a white-hot torrent of agony melting through her, making a deafening shriek quite worthy of the damned endlessly echo through her head.

“I know. I know.” Artemis climbed to his hind legs, pressed his forehead to her cheek. “It’s gonna be okay, but we have to go through with this. Be strong. I know you can. Be strong, like you know you can, just for a little bit longer.”

Minako didn’t bother trying to stop crying, just gave him a nod and started stitching the other wound. This time, she cried throughout, and she did grit her teeth until they creaked.

“It’s over. You’re done. Lay down...”

Laying down would be a generous description of Minako’s boneless slide sideways that saw her prone on the floor, but she had no strength left for anything better. Artemis disappeared from her field of vision for a moment then, but the patter of paws on the attic’s floor came back soon enough as he dragged her pillow towards her, circled it, and shoved it under her head by using his own like a battering ram. Then he went about adjusting the blanket as much as possible, pulling its corner over Minako’s bare feet. Finally, Artemis wormed his way into Minako’s arms, wrapped tightly around herself, and started purring, front paws kneading her chest lightly, with the minimal amount of claws. From there, he could only be there for her as she cried, and wait for the Scotch to do its job and allow her to sleep.


	12. Space prompts: Usagi with Nebula

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the previous chapter, the second of space-themed prompts I've filled. Still incredibly hard to work in the 'verse, so this isn't all that great, but it exists. Spite-written because I got annoyed by an anon starting shit on someone else's blog, sue me.
> 
> Prompt: "If you could undo one thing in your life, what would it be?" for Usagi.
> 
> wordcount ~1.9k

Usagi was an idealist, she supposed.

She balked at the term when her friends had first called her that. After all, it wasn’t a matter of belief that people were generally okay and that the world was, on a grand scale, worth every fight they had fought in its defence and that there wasn’t anything, or at least a lot of things, that couldn’t be fixed by a little love and having some faith and trying your best. It was just how things were. It was just the truth.

“Usagi-chan,” Ami had told her softly back then, “believing those things are fundamentally true is exactly what makes you an idealist.”

“But you think these things are true, too, right?” Usagi had argued, and looked to the others for support. “Guys?”

She hadn’t expected the silence that had followed, or the reserved look on everyone’s faces. This wasn’t something that needed to be thought about, right? It was just obvious. Just the truth of the world. Right?

Rei had shrugged, arms folded defensively across her chest, her face set in a frown. “I think people have it in them to be good, often, but they don’t exactly act on it often. Not as often as they should, anyway.”

Minako had laughed, one of her meaner laughs, and playfully smacked Usagi’s shoulder. “If that were true all of the time, I wouldn’t have been _half_ this successful.”

Makoto had cleared her throat, radiating discomfort. “I mean. You know. I can name a lot of situations when the world was kinda shitty, and people were kinda mean, but uh... I tend not to think about it, because it gets me down too fast. It’s better if you just keep your chin up and keep going, right?”

“I think we can all say that sometimes, you make it possible for us to believe those things are true,” Ami had said, ever the diplomat, and that statement had gotten nods all around.

Fine, Usagi supposed, so she was an idealist. So what?

She believed that everyone was a good person, that everyone was capable of kindness and generosity, deep down. She believed that the world was a good place, that it was worth going through any hardship or pain, that it was worth protecting. She believed that love was the strongest thing in the universe, that anything could be done when people came together with open hearts.

And she’d take whatever word these beliefs would make people call her. After all, ‘idealist’ wasn’t even a bad one.

In her heart, Usagi knew these beliefs to be the starkest truth that ever existed.

The world was worth it. People were good. Real love could overcome anything. She thought those things to herself many times, when her life was hard and painful and difficult.

She thought these things to herself again, as she stood in a devastated park, the small square’s flagstones shattered, the lampposts bent or snapped like matches, the trees all around turned into charred and leafless husks trailing smoke into the gray-veiled sky.

There weren’t any monsters left, anymore. All that remained was three people, human beings, battered and bruised and dirty and kneeling on the ground, all wide-eyed with shock and confusion and revulsion and fear.

“I can still feel it inside me. You have to put it down no matter what,” one of them said.

“I’m not safe to be around anymore. You can’t let me go if I’m like this,” another of them said.

“I’d rather die than be made into a monster again. I want to die,” the last of them said.

“No,” Sailor Moon told them firmly, the Silver Crystal still shining in her hands as she deposited it back in her brooch, after using it to burn away the evil wrapped around those three. “Nobody has to die today. None of this was your fault! Things are going to be okay now. It’s over now, I have faith in that.”

The next day, one of them had been found dead in their own apartment.

The day after that, the remaining two had turned into monsters once again. And once the Senshi were through fighting, the place devastated into a battleground was a supermarket’s parking lot, much more crowded than a park in the middle of a workday. And once the Senshi were through fighting, the remaining two were twisted and drained and pale and limp on the ground, lifeless eyes staring into the gray-veiled sky.

Once the Senshi were through fighting, Venus was wiping the Holy Sword’s blade into a t-shirt that had fallen out of an overturned shopping cart and Neptune was pouring bottled water over her gloves to wash them clean, and both their faces might have just as well been hewn from stone.

Neptune had taken her leave along with the rest of her group, and as usual, Usagi did not know where to look for them, and Usagi did not know when or if she would see them again, and Usagi did not know what she would say upon such a meeting, so maybe she didn’t try particularly hard to talk to her. Venus had gone off the grid soon after, too, but Usagi knew her better, and she knew where to look, and she knew what to say.

The idle creaking of an old chain and unoiled hinges confirmed that Usagi had, in fact, looked in the right place.

Minako looked up from where she was sitting in a too-low swingset, in casual clothes and with mirthless eyes, the Holy Sword laid across her lap in its scabbard.

She did not say hi.

Usagi gestured at the neighbouring swingset. “Can I sit with you?”

“Far be it from me to tell my Princess where to sit,” Minako shot back.

Usagi winced, but refused to be pushed away with a single hit. “You’re going to eat those words the next time we do a movie night and I sit next to the popcorn.”

There it was—a spark of amusement, if brief, if faint. “ _Eat_ those words. Nice.”

“So can I?”

“Sure. Marvel at how gracious I am.”

“I stand in awe... sit in awe... of the gracious swingset marvellous... thing.”

Minako snorted. “Gold star for trying.”

“Minako-chan,” Usagi said quietly as she leaned back in the swingset until its supports shielded her eyes from the glare of the setting sun. “Why do you do these things?”

Minako raised her eyebrows. “I do a lot of things, you know. Don’t suppose you could be more specific on which things you mean right now? Although, gotta warn you, I _am_ a mystery. Might not reveal my reasons for the fabled things.”

Usagi reached over, and patted the Holy Sword’s guard with one hand. “ _These_ things.”

“Oh, these things.” A dramatic sigh escaped Minako’s lips. “It all began years ago, when I was being amazing, as you do, and a little white cat—”

“Minako-chan.”

Minako was silent for a long while, and when her eyes flicked up to Usagi’s again, her expression was no longer a joking one.

“You want the real answer? Spoiler, you’re not going to like it.”

“Tell me,” Usagi insisted nonetheless.

“Because,” Minako said slowly, deliberately, weighing every word, “I know _you_ won’t. You’re going to insist that no one has to die, that you can love the enemies into submission, that no sacrifices have to be made in order to protect the world. And you’re always going to refuse to accept that it’s just not going to work.”

Now it was Usagi’s turn to look away, to rock herself idly in the swingset, to be silent for a really long while. “But I can make it work.”

“I know you can— _sometimes_. Heck, I’d be dead several times over if you couldn’t sometimes. But you can’t every time,” Minako told her firmly. “And you’re going to try even when you can’t, because you’re an idealist, and when you try even though you can’t, you’re going to fail. And when you fail, _I’m_ the one who has to be ready. _I’m_ the one who needs a plan for when you fail, because when you fail and no one else picks up the spare, we die. All of us. All over again. And I’m selfish enough to sacrifice _anyone_ if it keeps my girls safe. Never mind the world. But them? I have, and I will, both kill and die for them.”

Usagi took a deep breath, thought about it, and found nothing she could argue with.

She still believed that the world was worth it. That people were good. That love couldn’t be beaten.

But Minako had a point about belief not being enough sometimes.

So in the end, she said, “What do you think I should have done?”

“I think you should have killed them,” Minako said evenly. “I think you should have made it quick. You should have made them feel at peace and warm and fuzzy, because I know you can do that, and made it so quick that they wouldn’t feel a thing.”

Usagi found herself gritting her teeth, a tide of frustration and regret and, yes, a touch of disappointment bringing tears to her eyes. But she wasn’t going to cry. Not this time. Not when Minako would read it as an attempt to get out of the conversation.

“I’ll remember,” she said instead of crying, and her voice didn’t shake. “For the next time.”

“That’s not good enough,” Minako’s voice snapped like a whip. “You have to decide before you’re faced with it. You have to be ready for it, before it’s dropped in your lap. If you have to _think about it_ next time, believe me: you’ll chicken out again. And you know who’s next in line for doing it if you can’t.”

“You are,” Usagi said quietly.

“That’s right. And let me tell you...” Minako’s hand wrapped around the Holy Sword’s hilt, without hesitation, without remorse. And the lunar blade was bared, just slightly, entirely enough to reinforce her next words. “This thing doesn’t make people feel loved before it kills them. This thing doesn’t make it quick. You want the best for people, even those we fight? You keep that in mind.”

Usagi looked up at the sky.

The world was worth it, she thought to herself. People were good, she thought to herself. Real love could overcome anything, she thought to herself.

The world was worth protecting, and it didn’t deserve needless danger like the one she had put it in.

People were good, and one of them was Minako-chan, and Minako-chan didn’t deserve to have everything difficult shoved onto her shoulders without even getting any recognition for all the hard work that she did.

Real love could overcome anything, and she loved her friends enough to stop disrespecting everything they had gone through for her by wasting their hardship and effort and bravery.

Usagi thought these things to herself again, and knew in her heart that they were true.

She just had to do a better job of acting on them.


End file.
